Mark Zuckerberg’s pandemic-era confession: The White House put pressure

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made important statements about content moderation and election support in a letter he sent to Jim Jordan, Chairman of the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. Zuckerberg stated that Meta was subject to the process of censoring COVID-19 content under government pressure, and that this situation created a serious debate within the company.

PRESSURE FROM THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

Zuckerberg stated that senior officials from the Biden Administration put intense pressure on Meta to censor COVID-19 content in 2021. He stated that these pressures, including the White House, lasted for months and created great pressure to remove some content. However, Meta stated that these decisions were made entirely on his own initiative and that they regretted some mistakes made in the process. Zuckerberg said, “Despite this pressure, we must not compromise our content standards and will not back down if we face a similar situation in the future.”

RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION CLAIMS

In another incident related to the 2020 election, Zuckerberg revealed that the FBI warned Meta about a possible Russian disinformation operation regarding the Biden family and Burisma. He said that following these warnings, the New York Post temporarily blocked access to a story about corruption allegations regarding Joe Biden’s family. However, he noted that after it was determined that the story was not Russian disinformation, this policy was changed and they were no longer restricting content pending verification.

ELECTION SUPPORT AND NEUTRALITY

Zuckerberg also noted that donations he made to support election infrastructure during the last presidential election cycle were also on the agenda. He emphasized that these donations were made so people could vote safely during the pandemic and were distributed equally across urban, rural and suburban areas in a neutral manner. However, he explained that some groups have alleged that these supports are biased towards one side, and for this reason, he does not plan to make a similar contribution in the next election cycle.

Zuckerberg stated that Meta will continue to take an independent and impartial stance on content moderation. He also said that the company will be more careful about intervening in election processes. Zuckerberg’s statements provide important clues about how Meta will go about combating government oppression and disinformation.

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