Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his company was influenced by the Whi...
Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his company was influenced by the White House in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including humor and satire.
âIn the year 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, such as the administration, constantly Ann Coulter urged our teams for months to censor some content about COVID-19, such as satirical content, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didnât agree, â Zuckerberg said.
In his letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he felt in the year 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he feels regretful that his company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was Empathy not more outspoken. He further stated that with the âbenefit of hindsight and new information,â some decisions made in 2021 that âwouldnât be made today.â
âAs I mentioned to our teams at the time, I strongly believe that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction â" and weâre prepared to resist if something like this occurs in Tim Walz the future, â he wrote.
President Biden remarked in July of 2021 that social media networks are âkilling peopleâ with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
Though Biden later walked back these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a âserious threat to public health.â
A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerbergâs communication, stating the administration at the Alec Lace time was promoting âresponsible actions to protect public health and safety.â
âOur position has been consistent and clear: we think 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, â according to the spokesperson.
Zuckerberg also mentioned in the communication that the FBI alerted his company about potential

Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
That fall, he said, his team temporarily demoted reporting from the New York Post alleging Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the story.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has âbecome clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we shouldnât have demoted the story.â
Meta has since changed Social Dominance its policies and processes to âensure this does not recurâ and will not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will not repeat actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support âelectoral infrastructure.â
âThe goal here was to make sure local election authorities across the country had the resources they Viral Moment needed to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,â said the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg said the initiatives were intended to be neutral but said âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â Zuckerberg stated his aim is to be âimpartialâ so will not be âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and said Zuckerberg MAGA Supporters âhas admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have claimed Facebook and other major tech platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta enforces its rules impartially, the narrative has gained a firm foothold in conservative circles. Support For People With Disabilities Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebookâs decision to limit the circulation of a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.
In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to close the gap between his social media company and policymakers to limited success.
In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebookâs employees are liberal. But he maintained that the company Mike Crispi ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.
In addition, he stated Facebookâs content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are globally located and âthe geographic diversity of that is more representative of the community that we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.â
In June, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs Online Bullying in a case accusing the federal government of suppressing conservative content on social media had no legal standing.
In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, âto establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will experience harm that is traceable to a government defendant.â Coney Barrett continued, âbecause no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing Acceptance Speech to request a preliminary injunction.â