Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, claimed that the Biden administration exerted pressure for Meta to restrict Covid-related content in 2021.
In 2021, high-ranking officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly urged our team for several months to suppress certain COVID-19 content, such as jokes and parodies, and expressed considerable annoyance when we refused to comply. As per Zuckerberg's testimony before the judiciary committee, he felt this pressure was unwarranted and regretted that his company, the proprietor of Facebook and Instagram, didn't voice its objections more forcefully. Zuckerberg mentioned that, given the hindsight and fresh information, certain choices made in 2021 wouldn't be made today.
Zuckerberg emphasized to his team at that time that they shouldn't compromise their content standards due to pressure from any Administration and is prepared to confront such issues in the future.
President Biden stated in July 2021 that social media platforms were causing harm to people through misinformation pertaining to the pandemic.
Although Biden later recanted his remarks, the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, declared at the time that misinformation disseminated on social media posed a significant danger to public health.
In response to Zuckerberg's letter, a White House spokesperson maintained that they encouraged responsible actions to safeguard public health and safety during that period. The spokesperson further asserted that they expect private entities such as tech companies to consider the consequences of their actions on the American public before making decisions about the information they present.
Zuckerberg revealed in his letter that the FBI warned his company about potential Russian misinformation involving Hunter Biden's actions at Burisma and their influence on the 2020 election.
Later in the year, Zuckerberg said, his team briefly suppressed news articles from the New York Post which alleged Biden family corruption while awaiting verification by their fact-checkers. Zuckerberg admitted that in hindsight, the articles weren't Russian misinformation and they should not have impaired their circulation.
Since then, Meta has revised its policies and procedures to ensure such occurrences don't recur and will no longer restrict content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.
In his letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg pledged not to repeat the actions he took in 2020 when he helped facilitate "electoral infrastructure."
Zuckerberg explained that the objective was to provide necessary resources to local election agencies across the nation to ensure safe voting during the pandemic. However, Zuckerberg acknowledged that some people felt that these initiatives supported one party over the other. Consequently, he will not make a similar contribution this time round.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee, who are affiliated with the GOP, shared Zuckerberg's letter on platform X and argued that the Biden-Harris administration had exerted pressure on Facebook to censor US citizens, and that Facebook had complied with those demands and also suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Zuckerberg has long been a subject of scrutiny from congressional Republican leaders, who have accused Facebook and other large technology platforms of being leaning towards conservatives. Despite Zuckerberg maintaining that Meta adheres to its guidelines impartially, this notion has gained traction within conservative circles. Republican politicians have particularly focused on Facebook's decision to limit the spread of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In recent Congressional testimonies, Zuckerberg tried to bridge the gap between his social media behemoth and policymakers, but to no avail.
During the 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebook's employees have a leaning towards the left. Zuckerberg insisted, however, that the company takes measures to prevent political bias from permeating decision-making processes.
Moreover, he claimed that Facebook's content moderators, the majority of whom are contractors, hail from diverse locations worldwide and represent a more comprehensive reflection of the community they serve than the full-time employee base in Facebook's Bay Area headquarters.
In June of this year, in a victory for the White House, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case alleging federal government censorship of conservative voices on social media lacked the necessary legal standing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated that the plaintiffs need to demonstrate a significant risk of imminent injury that can be attributed to the federal government in order to establish standing. Barrett further contended that no plaintiff had met this criteria, thus they lacked the legal right to seek a preliminary injunction.
According to the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan education group, over 500 instances of misinformation have been identified in the 2024 election cycle, including false endorsements from celebrities.
Despite the pressure from top officials in the Biden Administration to suppress certain COVID-19 content, Zuckerberg urged his team to maintain their content standards in business decisions. The White House spokesperson later acknowledged that they anticipated private entities like tech companies to consider the consequences of their actions on the American public.
