Zuckerberg reveals how Biden’s administration pressured to censor COVID-19 contents

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has disclosed that the Biden administration repeatedly pressured the company to “censor” certain content about COVID-19 during the pandemic.

In a letter to US House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, Zuckerberg admitted that senior White House officials pressed Meta to remove various posts, including humorous and satirical content, and expressed frustration when the platform didn’t comply.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humour and satire and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.

“Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure,” he said.

READ ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg accuses Biden-Harris administration of pressuring Meta to censor content

Zuckerberg acknowledged that it was ultimately Meta’s decision to take down content but expressed regret over yielding to the pressure, stating: “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.”

He also emphasized that Meta should not compromise its content standards due to political pressure, regardless of the administration.

In the letter, Zuckerberg also confirmed that Facebook temporarily demoted a story alleging corruption within the Biden family after a warning from the FBI about potential Russian disinformation.

“In a separate situation, the FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

“That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply,” said Zuckerberg.

He further acknowledged that the story was later confirmed not to be Russian disinformation, adding: “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.

We’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again. For instance, we no longer temporarily demote things in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.”

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Zuckerberg also announced that he would not be donating to election infrastructure this year, indicating a desire to remain neutral.