Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has admitted his company caved to pressure from the Biden administration in 2021 to censor COVID-19 content on its platforms, including humour and satire.
In an August 26, 2024, letter addressed to the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Zuckerberg acknowledged that Meta made several content moderation decisions under pressure from senior officials, including those in the White House.
“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 said.
The Facebook founder expressed regret over not being more vocal in opposing the administrations demands and stated that the company would push back against similar pressures in the future.
“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,” he said.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
Zuckerberg also noted a separate situation with the FBI, admitting that Meta temporarily demoted a New York Post story in 2020, on allegations of corruption involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, based on warnings of potential Russian disinformation.
“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg said.
“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.”
Zuckerberg said that during the last presidential cycle, he provided support for local election jurisdictions through the Chen Zuckerberg Initiative to ensure safe voting during the pandemic. Although he said they were designed to be non-partisan, some believe this work benefited one party over the other.
“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another – or even appear to be playing a role,” he said.
“So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”
