Mark Zuckerberg submitted a letter to Home Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday stating that in 2021, Meta censored sure Covid-19 content material on Fb, Instagram, WhatsApp, and different platforms it owns.
The letter was in response to the committee’s ongoing investigation of how the federal authorities performs into content material moderation decisions made by tech corporations.
Meta made the transfer in response to repeated, months-long stress from the Biden Administration, together with the White Home, Zuckerberg disclosed. Senior Biden Administration officers “expressed a whole lot of frustration” when Meta’s groups did not initially agree with the calls for to take down content material, together with satirical and humorous posts.
“I consider the federal government stress was incorrect, and I remorse that we weren’t extra outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, in January 2024. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Finally, it was Meta’s determination to censor some posts, and “we personal our choices,” Zuckerberg acknowledged.
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The White Home publicly known as out Fb as a spot for Covid misinformation in 2021, with President Joe Biden stating that Fb and different social platforms had been “killing folks” with false claims.
In hindsight, Zuckerberg stated within the letter that Meta would not make the identical decisions at present that it did in 2021, and that the corporate is ready to combat again if related requests for content material moderation come up once more from any administration affiliated with any political occasion.
“Like I stated to our groups on the time, I really feel strongly that we should always not compromise our content material requirements as a consequence of stress from any Administration in both path — and we’re able to push again if one thing like this occurs once more,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Zuckerberg’s letter additionally stated that, in 2020, Meta demoted a New York Put up story about corruption allegations associated to Joe Biden’s household whereas ready for fact-checkers. The FBI had warned Meta a couple of doable Russian disinformation marketing campaign concerning the Biden household earlier than the 2020 election, resulting in the demotion.
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After the investigation, Meta found that the report wasn’t linked to Russian disinformation. The corporate has since overhauled its insurance policies to ensure a mistake like that does not occur once more, Zuckerberg assured the committee chairman in his letter.
Meta had better-than-expected earnings final month, with gross sales of $39.1 billion for the quarter that ended June 30. That was above the $38.3 billion analysts anticipated.
