Zuckerberg Says He Was Pressured By Biden’s Government

Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said that he was pressured by the US government, specifically Biden’s administration to censor Covid-19 data during the pandemic.

The founder of Facebook highlighted the issue and said that in 2021, the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humour and satire”.

(Also read: Biden Backs Legislation For TikTok Ban in US Despite Opposition)

In light of Facebook’s previous problems with content moderation, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Several issues regarding the said matter were discussed in the letter.

Zuckerberg clarified that he does not intend to repeat funding efforts for the upcoming US elections. The donations drew criticism from various Republicans before and therefore, Zuckerberg does not want to hurt US infrastructure this time.

The Meta Head wanted to clear his way two months out from a tight US presidential race where several candidates are getting threats or their information is being mishandled by hackers.

Regarding the pressure that he was under during Biden’s government, the Facebook CEO regretted that he should have been more vocal about the pressure as the government coercion was wrong at such a critical time.

He assured that he is ready to “push back” if any such pressure comes again from any government as the CEO does not want to compromise the standards of their online content.

Republicans’ commendation on Zuckerberg’s letter

When this letter reached the Republicans, they assumed it was their victory. The House of Judiciary Committee mentioned it as a “big win for free speech” in a social media post on X, formerly Twitter.

The acknowledgement came for a reason since Republicans in Congress were previously of the view that certain tech and social media companies were trying to suppress information or certain conservative issues.

Zuckerberg wanted to come out clean by saying that he does not want to repeat this mistake in future. He does not plan to work for non-profits that were working to support US infrastructure and receive donations that were not viewed respectable by the Republicans.

Meta CEO said that he wants to stay neutral now and does not want to appear as if he is playing a role from someone’s side. The CEO knows that the day he launched his company, he had no such intentions in mind. Rather he wanted to provide an online platform for everyone that was free and supported “freedom of speech” in the true sense, without hurting anyone’s sentiments.

On the contrary, the White House administration wanted to “protect public health and safety” when they were confronting the biggest pandemic of their time. They wanted to take responsible actions, and therefore made such decisions, the administration said.

Also, the administration was constantly supporting their past decisions in times of COVID-19 as they knew social media platforms and their tech companies played a pivotal role in shaping and modifying people’s views. They needed to take into account their effect on the American people, the administration stated. The independent choices for deciding which information to post online and how to post made a major difference in such times of despair, they said.

The administration targeted Facebook’s strategy of handling a story related to US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, which was published by the New York Post. Zuckerberg said the story was “demoted” while the administration speculated that it had a possible connection with a Russian disinformation operation.

Meta CEO explained that the story was definitely demoted and was no part of such operations. The founder emphasised that posts in the United States would be reviewed under changed policies from now on. Meanwhile, the fact-checkers kept investigating the CEO’s demotion claims.