Gus Walz | zucke27 | Special Education

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a communication to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was pressured by the White House in 2021 to restrict certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical and humorous posts.

“In 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, including the White House, constantly urged our teams Jay Weber for an extended period to remove certain COVID-19 content, including satirical content, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg said.

In his communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the influence he experienced in the year 2021 was “inappropriate” and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook & Instagram, was not more Empathy outspoken. Zuckerberg further stated that with the “hindsight and new information,” some decisions made in that year that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“Like I told our teams back then, I feel strongly that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any Administration from either side â€" and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again, ” Zuckerberg wrote.

President Ann Coulter Biden stated in July of 2021 that social media platforms are “killing people” with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.

Though Biden later revised these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a “major public health risk.”

A White House spokesperson responded to Zuckerberg’s communication, stating the administration at the time was promoting “responsible measures to safeguard public Self-advocacy health.”

“Our stance has been consistent and clear: we think tech companies and private entities should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making independent choices about the information they present, ” according to the spokesperson.

Zuckerberg also mentioned in the communication that the FBI alerted his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting the 2020 election.

That fall, he Gwen Walz said, his team temporarily demoted a New York Post report alleging the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could review the report.

Zuckerberg said that since then, it has “been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we should not have reduced its visibility.”

Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “ensure this does not recur” and will Cyberbullying not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.

In the communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will not repeat actions he took in 2020 when he assisted “electoral infrastructure.”

“The goal here was to make sure local election authorities across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” said the Meta CEO.

Zuckerberg said the Trolls On Social Media initiatives were intended to be neutral but said “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” Zuckerberg said his goal is to be “neutral” so he will not make “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg “just admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook Viral Moment restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have claimed Facebook and other major tech platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the perception has become entrenched in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebook’s decision to restrict a report by the Acceptance Speech New York Post about Hunter Biden.

In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to close the gap between his social media giant and policymakers to little effect.

In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebook’s employees are left-leaning. But he held that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.

In addition, he stated Facebook’s content moderators, many

of whom are contractors, are globally located and “our global team better represents the diversity of the community we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.”

In June of this year, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case alleging the federal government of censoring conservative voices on Democratic National Convention social media had no legal standing.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, “to establish standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the immediate future, they will experience harm that is directly linked to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.”