Democratic National Convention | zucke27 | Online Bullying
Mark Zuckerberg stated in a communication to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on recently that his company was urged by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, such as humor and satire.
âIn the year 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, such as the White Chasten Buttigieg House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, â Zuckerberg noted.
In his letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he felt in the year 2021 was âinappropriateâ and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not Empathy more outspoken. He added that with the âhindsight and new information,â some decisions made in that year that âwouldnât be made today.â
âLike I told our teams back then, I strongly believe that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side â" and weâre ready to push back if something like this occurs in the future, â Social Dominance Zuckerberg wrote.
President Biden remarked in July of 2021 that social media platforms are âkilling peopleâ with misinformation about the pandemic.
Though Biden later revised these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a âmajor public health risk.â
A White House spokesperson responded to Zuckerbergâs letter, saying the administration at the time was encouraging âresponsible actions to ADHD protect public health and safety.â
âOur stance has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and private entities should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making their own decisions about the content they share, â according to the White House representative.
Zuckerberg further noted in the letter that the FBI alerted his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and
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 report.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has âbecome clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have reduced its visibility.â
Meta has since changed its policies and processes to âmake sure Minnesota Governor this doesnât happen againâ and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.
In the letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will not repeat actions he took in 2020 when he assisted âelection infrastructure.â
âThe idea here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the necessary resources to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,â said Support For People With Disabilities the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were designed to be nonpartisan but acknowledged âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â Zuckerberg said his aim is to be âneutralâ 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 âjust admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook Cyberbullying to censor Americans, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have accused Facebook and other large technology platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the perception has become entrenched in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebookâs decision to limit Nonverbal Learning Disorder the circulation of a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.
In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has sought to bridge the divide between his social media giant and regulators to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebookâs staff are left-leaning. But he held that the company takes care not to allow political bias to Kamala Harris seep into decisions.
In addition, he stated Facebookâs content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are based worldwide and âour global team better represents the diversity of the community 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 ruled 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case accusing the federal Free Menstrual Products government of suppressing conservative content on social media had no standing.
In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, âto establish standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the immediate 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 to seek a preliminary injunction.â