Zuckerberg: Biden pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Biden administration had pressured the company to “censor” COVID-19 content during the pandemic, apparently referring to White House requests to remove misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines.

In an August 26 letter to the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he regretted not speaking out sooner about this pressure, as well as other decisions he made as the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp regarding the removal of certain content.

In July 2021, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said that social media platforms like Facebook were “killing people” for allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on their platforms.

Others, like former White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, have openly said the company did not do enough to remove misinformation, making it harder to combat the pandemic and save lives.

Facebook said at the time that it was taking “aggressive steps” to combat such misinformation. The Biden administration eventually eased its criticism somewhat, even as vaccine lies continued to spread on social media. In the letter to the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Monday, Zuckerberg said his company was being “pressured” to “censor” content and that the company would push back if faced with such demands again.

“In 2021, senior officials in the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed significant frustration with our teams when we failed to agree,” Zuckerberg wrote in the letter, which was posted by the Judiciary Committee on its Facebook page.

“I believe the government pressure was misguided, and I regret that we were not more open about it,” he wrote. “I also believe that we made some choices that, given what we know now and the new information, we would not make today.”

The White House said in a statement that the administration encourages responsible actions to protect public health and safety during a deadly pandemic.

“Our position is clear and consistent: We believe that technology companies and other private actors must consider the effects their actions have on the American people while making independent choices about the information they present.”

Zuckerberg has recently tried to appeal to conservative users by complimenting Republican candidate Donald Trump’s response to an assassination attempt as “badass” and by making right-wing podcasts. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, is a staunch Trump ally.

In its Facebook post, the Judiciary Committee called the letter a “major victory for free speech” and said Zuckerberg had admitted that “Facebook was censoring Americans.”

In the letter, Zuckerberg also said he would not make any contributions to support electoral infrastructure in this year’s presidential election, so as to “play no role” in the November election.

During the last election, held in 2020 amid the pandemic, the billionaire donated $400 million through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, his philanthropic venture with his wife, to support election infrastructure. The move drew criticism and lawsuits from some groups who said it was biased.