Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, in a letter to the US House Judiciary Committee of the Republican Party, has claimed that the Biden-Harris administration "repeatedly pressured" Facebook to censor Covid-related content in 2021.
"I believe the government pressure was wrong," the Meta Chief Executive Officer said while expressing regret over not being more "outspoken" about it. He said that his team also made some choices that, "with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn't make today".
"There's a lot of talk right now around how the US government interacts with companies like Meta, and I want to be clear about our position," he wrote in his letter.
Zuckerberg said that Meta platforms are about promoting speech and networking in a safe and secure way. "As part of this, we regularly hear from governments around the world and others with various concerns around public discourse and public safety," he added.
He noted that the Biden-Harris administration even asked Meta to take down humour and satire content related to Covid-19.
Zuckerberg clarified his stance that no compromise should be made in their content standards because of any pressure from any Administration, adding that they are "ready to push back if something like this happens again".
The Meta CEO's letter was posted on X by the US House Judiciary panel which wrote: "Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things: 1.Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans. 2. Facebook censored Americans. 3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story. Big win for free speech."
Zuckerberg also recounted that in the lead up to the 2020 elections, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had warned them about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma.
"That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving the then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply," Zuckerberg said.
He noted that it was later clarified that the reporting was not Russian disinformation and in retrospect, Meta should not have demoted the story.
"We have changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn't happen again, for instance, we no longer temporarily demote thins in the US while waiting for fact-checkers," Zuckerberg wrote in his letter.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk reposted Zuckerberg's letter and said, "Sounds like a First Amendment violation."
