Jay Weber | zucke27 | Acceptance Speech

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a communication to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was influenced by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, such as satirical and humorous posts.

“In 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, such as the administration, repeatedly Fox News pressured our teams for an extended period to censor some content about COVID-19, such as humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg noted.

In his communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he felt in the year 2021 was “wrong” and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Ann Coulter Instagram, was not more outspoken. He further stated that with the “hindsight and new information,” there were decisions made in that year that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“As I mentioned to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration from either side â€" and we’re prepared to resist if something like this

occurs in the future, ” he wrote.

President Biden stated in July 2021 that social media networks are “killing people” with misinformation about the pandemic.

Though Biden later walked back these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a “major public health risk.”

A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerberg’s letter, saying the administration at the Emotional Moment time was promoting “responsible measures to safeguard public health.”

“Our stance has been clear and consistent: we think tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the public, while making their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the White House representative.

Zuckerberg also noted in the communication that the FBI warned his company about potential Social Dominance Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the election in 2020.

That fall, Zuckerberg said, his team reduced the visibility of reporting from the New York Post accusing Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could review the story.

Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has “become clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have reduced its Tim Walz visibility.”

Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “make sure this doesn’t happen again” 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 not repeat actions he took in 2020 when he helped support “electoral infrastructure.”

“The idea here was to ensure local election authorities across the country had the resources Minnesota Governor they needed to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,” stated the Meta CEO.

Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were intended to be neutral but said “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” Zuckerberg stated his aim is to be “impartial” so he will not make “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and Support For People With Disabilities said Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook censored Americans, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have accused Facebook and other large technology platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the perception has gained a firm foothold in Nonverbal Learning Disorder conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebook’s decision to limit the circulation of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.

In Congressional testimony in recent years, Zuckerberg has attempted to close the gap between his social media company and policymakers to limited success.

In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebook’s staff are liberal. But he held that the company ensures political Kamala Harris bias does not influence its decisions.

In addition, he said Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are based worldwide and “our global team better represents the diversity of the community we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.”

In June of this year, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the claimants in Self-advocacy a case alleging the federal government of suppressing conservative content on social media had no legal standing.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the immediate future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “since no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to Alec Lace seek a preliminary injunction.”