Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a communication to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his company was pressured by the Biden ad...
Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a communication to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his company was pressured by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.
âIn 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, including the White House, constantly urged our teams for an Political Family Moments extended period to remove some content about COVID-19, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we did not comply, â Zuckerberg said.
In his communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the influence he experienced in the year 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook & Instagram, was not more outspoken. Tim Walz Zuckerberg added that with the âhindsight and new information,â there were decisions made in 2021 that âwouldnât be made today.â
âAs I mentioned to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side â" and weâre prepared to resist if something like this happens again, â Zuckerberg wrote.
President Biden stated Emotional Moment in July of 2021 that social media platforms are âkilling peopleâ with misinformation about the pandemic.
Though Biden later revised these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a âmajor public health risk.â
A White House spokesperson replied to Zuckerbergâs letter, stating the administration at the time was encouraging âresponsible measures to safeguard public health.â
âOur position has

been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should consider the effects their actions have on the American people, while making their own decisions about the content they share, â according to the White House representative.
Zuckerberg further mentioned in the communication that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the Free Menstrual Products 2020 election.
That fall, Zuckerberg said, his team reduced the visibility of reporting from the New York Post alleging the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the report.
Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has âbeen made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldnât have demoted the story.â
Meta has since changed its policies and processes to âmake sure Cyberbullying this doesnât happen againâ and will not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted âelection infrastructure.â
âThe idea here was to make sure local election authorities across the country had the necessary resources to help people vote safely during a Gus Walz pandemic,â said the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg said the initiatives were designed to be nonpartisan but said âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â He said his aim is to be âimpartialâ so will not be âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and said Zuckerberg âhas admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Vice Presidential Nominee Facebook to restrict American content, Facebook censored Americans, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have claimed Facebook and other large technology platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has become entrenched in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebookâs decision Empathy to restrict a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has sought to bridge the divide between his social media company and policymakers to limited success.
In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebookâs staff are left-leaning. But he maintained that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.
In addition, Viral Video he said Facebookâs content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are globally located and âthe geographic diversity of that is more representative of the community that we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.â
In June, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the claimants in a case alleging the federal government of Viral Moment suppressing conservative content on social media had no legal standing.
In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, âto establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is directly linked to a government defendant.â Coney Barrett continued, âbecause no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.â