(The Hill) — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee saying he regrets not being more outspoken about “government pressure” from the Biden administration to “censor” content on its platforms.
“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,” he wrote in the letter.
Here’s what to know about the claims.
Zuckerberg alleges government pressure in letter to Judiciary Committee
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg answers a question during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 31, 2024.
In the letter, addressed to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Zuckerberg acknowledged that there is “a lot of talk right now” about how the U.S. government interacts with media companies like Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook.
The letter, sent Monday, is the latest in the committee’s investigation into how tech companies work with the federal government and make content moderation decisions.
Zuckerberg said Meta has produced “thousands of documents” for the committee’s investigation and will make employees available to interview. To further aid the investigation, the tech mogul said he was writing the letter to “share what I’ve taken away from this process.”
The letter was shared on the House Judiciary Committee GOP’s Facebook page, where they said it was a “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,” the panel wrote.
Biden administration allegedly asked to censor COVID-19 satire
President Joe Biden speaks about COVID-19 vaccinations in Elk Grove Village, Ill., Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Zuckerberg claimed senior Biden administration officials pushed Meta to censor certain content related to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
“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,” he wrote.
Zuckerberg said he believes the government pressure was “wrong” and that the company was not “more outspoken” on the issue at the time. He added that Meta made decisions that they would not make today with “the benefit of hindsight and new information.”
He added later in the letter: “We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”
Meta demoted Biden family article over Russian disinformation fears
Meta’s logo is seen on a sign, Nov. 9, 2022, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, File)
Zuckerberg said the FBI warned Meta about a “potential Russian disinformation operation” in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election between [President Joe] Biden and former President [Donald] Trump.
He noted in the letter that the potential operation was about the Biden family and its ties to Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company linked to the president’s son Hunter Biden.
The company made the decision to demote an article from the New York Post about corruption allegations against Biden, who, at the time, was the Democratic presidential nominee.
“We sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”
Meta has updated its policies and procedures, including no longer temporarily demoting posts in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers, he added.
CEO acknowledges contributions to ‘last presidential cycle’
This photo shows the mobile phone app logos for, from left, Facebook and Instagram in New York, Oct. 5, 2021. (Stock)
In the final paragraph of his two-page letter, Zuckerberg said he wanted to address the “contributions I made during the last presidential cycle to support electoral infrastructure.”
While the contributions were intended to be “non-partisan,” per the Meta founder, they have been accused of being unfairly distributed among left and right-leaning areas, which Republicans labeled “Zuckerbucks.”
Zuckerberg said the “Chan Zuckerberg Initiative” was intended to be distributed across urban, rural and suburban communities.
He said despite seeing analyses showing otherwise, “I know that some people believe this work benefitted one party over the other.”
“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role,” he concluded. “So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”
Trump responds claiming 2020 election was rigged
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at the National Guard Association of the United States’ 146th General Conference, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
In a post to his Truth Social platform, former President Trump responded to Zuckerberg’s letter and reiterated one of his largest false claims, that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in Biden’s favor.
“This is what everyone’s been waiting for — THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED!” he posted.
The former president was responding to a post from his lawyer, Alina Habba, which targeted the Biden administration and Trump’s new Democratic rival in the election, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This is exactly what this administration (WHICH INCLUDES KAMALA) has done to our country,” Habba wrote. “Censorship is what happens in communist countries not this republic.”
The White House defended its actions in a statement to The Hill.
“When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” a spokesperson wrote in the 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.”