By Ezekiel David
Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that the Biden administration pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content during the pandemic.
In an August 26 letter to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, the Meta CEO expressed regret for not pushing back harder and for some content removal decisions made by the company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humour and satire and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” Zuckerberg stated in the letter.
He admitted, “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
Zuckerberg also declared his intention to abstain from contributing to electoral infrastructure in the upcoming presidential election. He aims to remain neutral in the November vote. The letter, addressed to Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a Republican, was publicized by the committee on its Facebook page, lauded as a “big win for free speech.”
The committee asserted Zuckerberg’s letter as an admission that “Facebook censored Americans.” Neither the White House nor Meta has responded to requests for comment.
(Source: Reuters)