Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has acknowledged that the company made errors in censoring COVID-19-related content during the pandemic and expressed regret for not resisting pressure from the Biden administration. In a letter to the US House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg detailed how senior White House officials exerted pressure on the social media giant to remove certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.
Zuckerberg’s letter, addressed to Jim Jordan, the committee’s chairman, revealed that the Biden administration repeatedly urged Facebook to censor specific COVID-19 posts following Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. “Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure,” Zuckerberg wrote.
He further stated, “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that 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 emphasized the importance of not compromising content standards due to external pressure, pledging to push back against similar demands in the future.
During the pandemic, Facebook implemented misinformation alerts for users interacting with posts deemed to contain false information about COVID-19. The platform also removed posts criticizing the COVID vaccine or suggesting that the virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory, a theory that has since gained some support from mainstream scientists and government agencies.
In the 2020 election campaign, Joe Biden had accused Facebook of “killing people” by not clamping down more aggressively on COVID-19 misinformation. He later retracted these comments.
Zuckerberg also admitted that Facebook erred in suppressing a New York Post story about Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, which revealed Hunter’s business dealings. The FBI had warned Facebook about a potential Russian disinformation operation, leading the company to demote the story while it was reviewed by fact-checkers. This decision was later deemed a mistake.
The Hunter Biden laptop story, which was also blocked by Twitter, was seen as potentially damaging to Joe Biden’s election campaign. Republicans have cited the blocking of the story as evidence of Silicon Valley’s left-wing influence. Elon Musk, after acquiring Twitter, released internal emails related to the decision to block the story.
The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee hailed Zuckerberg’s admissions as a “big win for free speech.” Meanwhile, the White House defended its actions, stating that it encouraged responsible actions to protect public health during the pandemic. The administration maintained that tech companies should consider the effects of their actions on the American people while making independent choices about the information they present.
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