Meta Platforms CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted on Monday that his company faced “repeated pressure” from the Biden administration throughout 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including posts by everyday users.
Responding to questions from the House Judiciary Committee about how social media platforms manage online content, Zuckerberg addressed reports that the Biden administration tried to influence content moderation across various social media companies.
In a letter to the committee, Zuckerberg stated, “There’s a lot of talk right now, about how the U.S. government interacts with companies like Meta, and I want to be clear about our position. Our platforms are for everyone — we’re about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way.”
He acknowledged that for months in 2021, the Biden administration pushed his team to censor “certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our team when we didn’t agree.” Zuckerberg admitted that while Meta ultimately made its own decisions on what content to remove, he took responsibility for the actions taken, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg continued. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
Zuckerberg also noted that Facebook had reduced the visibility of the Hunter Biden laptop story after being warned by the FBI of a possible Russian disinformation effort related to Burisma and the Biden family during the 2020 election cycle.
“It’s been since made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg said.