Biden 'Pressured' Facebook To Censor COVID-19 And Hunter Biden Content, Zuckerberg Admits
Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets that Meta gave in to pressure from President Joe Biden's administration to censor certain content related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, the Meta chairman and CEO discussed what he described as interference from the Biden administration in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee amid its investigation into content moderation on online platforms.
According to Zuckerberg, senior administration and White House officials "repeatedly pressured" his teams for months to suppress some COVID-19 stories and posts, including humor and satire, back in 2021.
The billionaire wrote that these officials "expressed a lot of frustration" with Meta when his company initially refused to comply.
In his letter, Zuckerberg said that while taking certain content down and making COVID-19-related changes to their policy were ultimately his company's decision, he believes that the government pressure they faced in 2021 was "wrong."
He added that he now regrets that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had not been more outspoken about the issue.
"Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction -- and we're ready to push back if something like this happens again," Zuckerberg wrote in the letter.
The tech mogul went on to admit that Meta downplayed content about Hunter Biden and his laptop in the run-up to the 2020 election.
He said that at the time, Meta received a tip from the FBI about potential Russian disinformation around President Biden's son and the Ukrainian firm Burisma.
As a result of the warning, Zuckerberg said his team temporarily demoted a New York Post story alleging Biden family corruption while fact-checkers reviewed it.
However, Zuckerberg said that "it's since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation" and expressed regret over demoting it in the first place.
He noted in his letter that Meta has since made changes to its policy to ensure that this never happens again.
The White House responded to Zuckerberg's letter, defending the Biden administration's approach to COVID-19 information at the time.
"When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety," a White House spokesperson said in a statement obtained by CNN.
The statement continued, "Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present."
Meanwhile, House Judiciary Committee Republicans, led by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, called Zuckerberg's letter a "big win for free speech" in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
