Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed that the Biden administration “pressured” Facebook to suppress content related to the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2021 — reports The Wall Street Journal.
Biden administration officials, including those from the White House, “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” Zuckerberg came clean in a letter addressed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.
Zuckerberg also admitted that he regretted not speaking out about it 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.”
At the time, the Biden administration was reportedly seeking to mitigate misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines on social media, which it feared was causing Americans to hesitate in getting their shots. The White House’s concerns led to debates with platforms like Facebook over censoring some COVID-related content, including humorous or satirical posts.
Facebook, meanwhile, had a publicly stated goal of driving people towards COVID-19 vaccines. The company’s moderation of COVID-related content — which Zuckerberg’s letter established was at the behest of government officials — earned it backlash from Republicans, who accused it of censoring information that was meaningful to Republicans.
In the same letter, Zuckerberg also said he doesn’t plan on funding nonprofits to help organize the upcoming U.S. elections. Back in 2020, the billionaire and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated over $400 million to nonprofits dedicated to assisting local election efforts.
Zuckerberg noted that some people saw his contributions as support for one party over the other. Reiterating that his goal is to be “neutral,” the Facebook founder said he has no plans to make similar donations this cycle.
Want to see more of our stories on Google?
P.S. Want to keep this site truly independent? Support us by buying us a beer, treating us to a coffee, or shopping through Amazon here. Links in this post are affiliate links, so we earn a tiny commission at no charge to you. Thanks for supporting independent Canadian media!
Duh.
Who didn’t know they were being fed a very specific, controlled narrative? I guess it made most people feel better.
pathetic headline
Why? It’s accurate.