Ann Coulter | zucke27 | Hope Walz
Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on recently that Meta was pressured by the Biden administration in 2021 to restrict content related to COVID-19, including humor and satire.
âIn 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, including the administration, constantly urged our teams for an extended period
to censor some content about COVID-19, such as satirical content, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we did not comply, â Zuckerberg said.
In his letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the influence he felt in the year 2021 was âwrongâ and he regrets that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more outspoken. Zuckerberg added Democratic National Convention that with the âbenefit of hindsight 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 strongly believe that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction â" and weâre prepared to resist if something like this happens again, â he wrote.
President Biden Free Menstrual Products remarked in July of 2021 that social media platforms are âcausing harmâ with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
Though Biden later revised these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a âmajor public health risk.â
A White House spokesperson responded to Zuckerbergâs communication, stating the administration at the time was promoting âresponsible measures to safeguard public health.â
âOur Empathy position has been consistent and clear: 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 information they present, â according to the White House representative.
Zuckerberg further mentioned in the letter that the FBI warned his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Chasten Buttigieg Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
That fall, Zuckerberg said, his team temporarily demoted a New York Post report alleging Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could review the story.
Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has âbeen made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we should not have reduced its visibility.â
Meta has since changed its policies and processes to âmake sure MAGA Supporters this doesnât happen againâ and will not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will not repeat actions he took in 2020 when he helped support âelectoral infrastructure.â
âThe goal here was to ensure local election jurisdictions across the country had the necessary resources to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,â said the Online Bullying Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were designed to be nonpartisan but acknowledged âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â Zuckerberg stated his aim is to be âneutralâ 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 Facebook to Children With Disabilities restrict American content, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have claimed Facebook and other major tech platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta enforces its rules impartially, the narrative has gained a firm foothold in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebookâs decision Viral Video to restrict a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In Congressional testimony in recent years, Zuckerberg has sought to close the gap between his social media company and regulators to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebookâs staff are left-leaning. But he maintained that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.
In addition, he said Facebookâs content Gus Walz moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are based worldwide 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 decided 6-3 that the claimants in a case alleging the federal government of censoring conservative voices Mike Crispi on social media had no standing.
In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, âto establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the immediate future, they will experience harm that is directly linked to a government defendant.â Coney Barrett continued, âbecause no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.â