WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a letter that he and his team were pressured by the Biden administration to censor content on Facebook and Instagram 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 humour and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree,' Zuckerberg said in a letter addressed to Jim Jordan, the head of the U.S. House of Representatives judiciary committee. 'I believe the government pressure was wrong.'
During the pandemic, the social media platform censored various posts spreading misinformation about Covid, including posts criticizing Covid vaccines, and those suggesting that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory, The Guardian reports.
Zuckerberg also mentioned that his company was warned by the FBI regarding a 'potential Russian disinformation' operation, prompting the firm to temporarily demote content related to Joe Biden's son Hunter and the Ukrainian firm Burisma.
'I think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn't make today,' the CEO said. 'I regret we were not more outspoken about it.
'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 are ready to push back if something like this happens again.'
Zuckerberg's disclosures were touted as a 'big win for free speech' by Republicans. However, the White House defended its actions by saying that '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,' a White House spokesperson said.
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