Meta CEO Reveals Biden Administration Pressured Him to ‘Censor’ COVID-19 Content
By Movieguide® Contributor
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that the Biden administration put pressure on the company to “censor” COVID-19 information during the pandemic.
“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,” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee.
The Meta CEO went on to say that this was “wrong,” and he “regret[s]” not being more outspoken about what was going on at the time.
“Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg continued.
The White House responded to Zuckerberg’s letter in a statement: “Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present.”
Zuckerberg’s letter comes after the Meta CEO has made efforts to appear more impartial, as many accused him and the company of a left-leaning bias. Zuckerberg has said that he will no longer donate money to aid local election offices get ready for voters on Election Day, as he did in 2020.
“I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other,” he said in the letter. “My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”
The House Judiciary Committee posted Zuckerberg’s letter on X, writing, “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.”
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. pic.twitter.com/ALlbZd9l6K
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 26, 2024
Movieguide® previously reported on the same pressure X CEO Elon Musk is now facing:
Internet freedom advocate Mike Benz recently explained that Elon Musk is facing pressure to censor right-leaning users on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, heading into the 2024 election.
“[Musk is] under an extraordinary amount of pressure [to censor conservative users], and that pressure opinions is going to continue to mount as the election approaches,” Benz, a former cyber official with the State Department, told Tucker Carlson.
“I think there are 7 or 8 different Justice Department or SEC or FTC investigations into Elon Musk properties that all started after his acquisition of X,” he added.
However, despite the growing pressure, Benz believes Musk’s other properties give him the leverage he needs. Because the government relies on his SpaceX rockets and the batteries he produces, they cannot completely strong-arm him into complying with their will. Nonetheless, Benz believes they will have their way through a “death by a thousand cuts” approach.
“There are dependencies that the national security has on Elon Musk. I’m not sure he’d have as much room to negotiate if he had become the world’s richest man, selling at a lemonade stand,” Benz explained.
“If the national security state goes too hard on him by invoking something like [the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] to sort of nationalize some of these properties, I think the shockwave that it would send to the international investor community would be irrecoverable at a time when we’re engaged in great power competition,” he continued.
