In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was regretful about being not vocal about the “government pressure” to remove COVID-19 related content from his platforms (Facebook, Instagram), The Hill reports.
He revealed that senior officials in the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured” Meta to censor specific content in 2021.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken… Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg said in the leter to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
In addition to addressing government pressure, Zuckerberg criticized Meta’s handling of a New York Post story that made corruption allegations against President Biden’s family weeks before the 2020 election. He acknowledged that the company “shouldn’t have demoted” the article while awaiting fact-checkers’ reviews and noted that Meta has since updated its policies to prevent similar actions in the future.
Zuckerberg also announced his decision not to make contributions to local jurisdictions for election infrastructure this cycle, unlike he had done during the 2020 election. These contributions were aimed at being non-partisan but faced backlash for perceived bias, with some critics deeming them “Zuckerbucks” due to alleged unfair distribution between left-leaning and right-leaning areas.
“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role,” Zuckerberg said.
House Judiciary Republicans claimed the letter was a significant victory for free speech. They outlined three admissions from Zuckerberg: the Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor content, Facebook complied with this pressure, and the company throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.
“Mark Zuckerberg also tells the Judiciary Committee that he won’t spend money this election cycle. That’s right, no more Zuck-bucks. Huge win for election integrity,” the panel noted.
Meta, along with other social media platforms, has been criticized by Republicans for alleged censorship of conservative content. The Biden administration’s communications with social media companies regarding the removal of coronavirus and election misinformation were central to a recent Supreme Court case.
In June, the Court ruled 6-3 to reject challenges to officials’ communications with tech companies, determining that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing, though it did not address First Amendment issues involved in the case.
