Zuckerberg Admits White House Pressured Facebook To Censor Posts

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Biden-Harris administration repeatedly pressed his company, Meta, to censor content related to COVID-19.

The social media giant, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, among others, was “pressured” to remove specific coronavirus content, including humor and satire, from its platforms.

Zuckerberg made the admission in a Monday letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH).

“In 2021, senior officials from 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 a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” the Facebook founder wrote.

“Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure.”

Who else wishes Mark Zuckerberg’s regret had kicked in before the damage was done—rather than years later?

In a letter to Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg today expresses regret over Meta’s compliance with the Biden-Harris administration's pressure to… pic.twitter.com/IJmkVocf0d

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) August 26, 2024

Zuckerberg admitted to believing that it was “wrong” for the federal government to lean on his company, and he regrets not being more “outspoken” about it happening.

“I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” he added.

Zuckerberg claimed that he told his employees at the time that he felt “strongly” that Meta should not compromise their content standards based on “pressure from any Administration in either direction.”

He also noted that the company was “ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

Zuckerberg also owned up to making an error by suppressing the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from Hell” in the midst of the 2020 election, when federal agents falsely claimed the story stemmed from a “Russian disinformation operation.”

“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” he remarked.

“We’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again – for instance, we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S while waiting for fact-checkers.”

The world’s fourth richest person does not plan to make any political donations during this election cycle, after he was accused of funding Democrats in 2020, when he made contributions to support the electoral infrastructure.

He said “the idea” behind the Chan Zuckberg Initiative’s donation was to “make sure local jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely” during the pandemic.

The Meta CEO claimed the funds were “designed to be non-partisan” and distributed across “urban, rural, and suburban communities.”

Though he wrote that “analyses” have shown otherwise, “some people believe that this work benefited one party over the other.”

“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role,” he said. “So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”

Zuckerberg wrote the letter to respond to questions the House Judiciary Committee raised about how content is moderated on social media platforms.

“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,” he penned.

“Our platforms are for everyone — we’re about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way.”