US : Meta’s chief, Mark Zuckerberg, has voiced regret over the company’s past decision to censor COVID-19 content at the behest of President Joe Biden’s administration. In a recent letter to the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg admitted that Meta caved under pressure from senior officials, including the White House, 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 humour and satire,” Zuckerberg wrote. Despite this external pressure, Zuckerberg emphasized that Meta ultimately made the call to remove the content and takes full responsibility for that decision.
The timing of Zuckerberg’s letter is particularly notable. It arrives just weeks before the 2024 US presidential election, with current polls showing a tight race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump. Additionally, the letter comes in the wake of Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in France, highlighting ongoing global debates over content moderation.
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In his correspondence, Zuckerberg also expressed regret over Meta’s decision to demote a New York Post story published before the 2020 election, which included allegations against Hunter Biden. This decision followed FBI warnings about potential Russian disinformation, reflecting Meta’s heightened caution after the 2016 election’s Russian interference.
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