Empathy | zucke27 | Hope Walz

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

“In the year 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, such as the administration,

constantly urged our teams for an extended period to censor some content about COVID-19, including humor and satire, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg noted.

In his communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he experienced in 2021 was “wrong” and he regrets that his company, the parent of Facebook & Instagram, was not Mike Crispi more vocal. Zuckerberg further stated that with the “benefit of hindsight and new information,” there were decisions made in 2021 that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“Like I told our teams back then, I strongly believe that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side â€" and we’re prepared to resist if something like this happens again, ” Fox News Zuckerberg wrote.

President Biden remarked in July 2021 that social media platforms are “causing harm” with misinformation about the pandemic.

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

A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerberg’s letter, stating the administration at the time was promoting Vice Presidential Nominee “responsible measures to safeguard public health.”

“Our position has been clear and consistent: we think tech companies and private entities should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the content they share, ” according to the White House representative.

Zuckerberg also mentioned in the communication that the FBI warned his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Jay Weber Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting the 2020 election.

That fall, he said, his team reduced the visibility of a New York Post report alleging the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could review the story.

Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has “been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”

Meta has since updated its Acceptance Speech policies and procedures to “make sure this doesn’t happen again” and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.

In the communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted “election infrastructure.”

“The goal here was to make sure local election authorities across the country had the necessary Ann Coulter resources to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,” said the Meta CEO.

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

The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and said Parent-child Relationship Zuckerberg “just admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have accused Facebook and other major tech platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has gained a firm foothold in Viral Video conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebook’s decision to restrict a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.

In testimony before Congress in recent years, Zuckerberg has sought to bridge the divide between his social media giant and policymakers to little effect.

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

In addition, he stated 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, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a Social Dominance case alleging the federal government of censoring conservative voices on social media had no legal standing.

In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing Viral Moment to request a preliminary injunction.”