Zuckerberg blasts Biden administration for pressuring Meta to censor COVID content
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has washed his hands of this year’s U.S. presidential elections—and has vowed not to accommodate any demands from current or future administrations.
A letter written by the Facebook founder to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan alleges White House representatives “repeatedly pressured” Meta into censoring COVID content and “expressed a lot of frustration” when the Meta team would not comply.
The letter, dated Aug. 26, was shared on the official X page of the House Judiciary GOP; Jordan is the House Judiciary Committee chairman.
In the letter Zuckerberg, who has amassed a fortune worth $185 billion per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, says he regrets bowing to the alleged pressure from the Biden administration during the pandemic.
The entrepreneur wrote: “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.
“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.”
The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment but has issued a statement on how it approached online content relating to the coronavirus.
“When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” a spokesman told Politico. “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.”
Amid fears of a “tsunami of misinformation” ahead of the November elections, Zuckerberg is digging his heels in against any political pressure to come.
He added: “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.”
Overall Zuckerberg’s letter seeks to disentangle both Meta—which is currently being investigated by the European Commission over claims it is failing to adequately tackle disinformation—and himself from politics.
At the end of the letter Zuckerberg adds: “I want to address the contributions I made during the last presidential cycle to support electoral infrastructure. The idea here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a global pandemic.”
The contributions were made through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative—a philanthropic body cofounded and led by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan—totaling more than $400 million.
At the time, critics—including then-President Donald Trump—baselessly claimed the funds were being used to get then–Democratic nominee Joe Biden elected.
Indeed a study from UCLA published in May discovered the funds donated by the billionaire—nicknamed “Zuckerbucks” by critics—“did not substantially improve the performance of Democratic candidates.”
The contributions, designed to be nonpartisan, were spread across a range of urban and rural communities, Zuckerberg said.
He continued: “Still, despite the analyses I’ve seen showing otherwise, I know that some people 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 to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”
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
Fact-check delays
In the letter, Zuckerberg also confirms Meta has axed a policy of demoting stories until fact-checkers can confirm they are accurate.
The decision was taken after Meta was approached by the FBI, Zuckerberg writes, “about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead-up to the 2020 election.”
Zuckerberg explains: “That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then–Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply.”
In retrospect, Zuckerberg adds, “we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” and as such “we’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
The letter and information in Zuckerberg’s letter has been lauded by the GOP. Despite the evidence that Zuckerberg’s donations made no difference in the outcome of the election, the House Judiciary GOP wrote on Elon Musk–owned X: “No more Zuck-bucks. Huge win for election integrity.”
Meta did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
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