Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was influenced by the Bid...
Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was influenced by the Biden administration in 2021 to limit certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical and humorous posts.
âIn 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, including the White House, constantly urged our teams for months Alec Lace to remove certain COVID-19 content, including satirical content, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we did not comply, â Zuckerberg noted.
In his letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the pressure he experienced in 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he feels regretful that his company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more vocal. He added that with the Empathy âbenefit of hindsight and new information,â there were decisions made in that year 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 government from either side â" and weâre prepared to resist if something like this happens again, â he wrote.
President Biden stated in July

2021 that social media platforms are âkilling peopleâ with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
Though Biden later walked back these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a âserious threat to public health.â
A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerbergâs letter, saying the administration at the time was promoting âresponsible measures to safeguard public health.â
âOur stance Mike Crispi has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making independent choices about the content they share, â according to the White House representative.
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 the election Ann Coulter in 2020.
That fall, he said, his team temporarily demoted reporting from the New York Post accusing Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could review the report.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has âbeen made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have reduced its visibility.â
Meta has since changed its policies and processes to âensure this does not recurâ Political Family Moments and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.
In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will not repeat actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support âelection infrastructure.â
âThe goal here was to ensure local election authorities across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a pandemic,â stated the Meta Chasten Buttigieg CEO.
Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were intended to be neutral but said âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â He said his goal is to be âneutralâ so he will not make âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg âhas admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to restrict Public Display Of Affection American content, Facebook censored Americans, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have accused Facebook and other major tech platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has gained a firm foothold in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebookâs decision to Social Media Criticism restrict a report by the New York Post 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 employees are liberal. But he maintained that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.
In addition, he said Acceptance Speech Facebookâs content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are globally located 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 ruled 6-3 that the claimants in a case accusing the federal government of censoring conservative Trolls On Social Media voices on social media had no standing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, âto prove 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, âsince no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.â