Meta chief reveals Biden administration's pressure to censor COVID content
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that officials from President Joe Biden's administration pressured his company to censor content related to COVID-19 during the pandemic, reported Reuters. "I regret we were not more outspoken about it," added Zuckerberg.
In a letter dated 26 August addressed to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg expressed regret that he hadn't previously informed the public about the pressure exerted on Meta and the decisions made by the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp regarding content regulation.
"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 humour and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree," wrote Zuckerberg in the letter, which the House Judiciary Committee published on its Facebook page.
I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it," wrote the Meta Platforms CEO, adding that "I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn't make today."
The letter was addressed to the committee chairman, Jim Jordan, from the Republican Party. In its Facebook post, the committee called the letter a "big win for free speech" and stated that Zuckerberg admitted that "Facebook censored Americans."
In the letter, Zuckerberg also stated that he would not make any contributions to support any candidate in this year's presidential elections in order to "not play a role one way or another" in the November voting.
