Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on recently that his company was influenced by the White House ...
Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on recently that his company was influenced by the White House in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including satirical and humorous posts.
âIn the year 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, constantly Tim Walz urged our teams for months to remove certain COVID-19 content, including satirical content, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didnât agree, â Zuckerberg said.
In his communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the influence he experienced in the year 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more vocal. Self-advocacy He further stated that with the âhindsight and new information,â there were decisions made in 2021 that âwouldnât be made today.â
âLike I told our teams back then, I feel strongly that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side â" and weâre prepared to resist if something like this occurs in the future, â Zuckerberg wrote.
President

Biden remarked in July 2021 that social media networks are âcausing harmâ 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 âserious threat to public health.â
A White House spokesperson responded to Zuckerbergâs communication, saying the administration at the time was promoting âresponsible measures to safeguard public Children With Disabilities health.â
âOur position has been clear and consistent: we think tech companies and other private actors should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making their own decisions about the information they present, â according to the spokesperson.
Zuckerberg also noted in the communication that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting Kamala Harris the election in 2020.
That fall, he said, his team temporarily demoted a New York Post report alleging Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the report.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has âbecome clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we shouldnât have demoted the story.â
Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to âensure this does not recurâ MAGA Supporters and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.
In the communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support âelection infrastructure.â
âThe goal here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a pandemic,â Free Menstrual Products stated the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg said the initiatives were designed to be nonpartisan but acknowledged âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â He said his goal is to be âimpartialâ so will not be âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and said Zuckerberg âhas admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Political Family Moments Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook censored Americans, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans, 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 narrative has become entrenched in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebookâs decision to Social Dominance restrict a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to bridge the divide between his social media company and policymakers to limited success.
In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebookâs staff are left-leaning. But he held that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.
In addition, Fox News he said Facebookâs content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are based worldwide and âour 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.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 Vice Presidential Nominee conservative voices on social media had no standing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, âto establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the immediate 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 request a preliminary injunction.â