Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has alleged that he came under pressure from the US government to censor coronavirus posts on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic, and said he regrets giving in to it.
Zuckerberg said White House officials under Joe Biden\’s administration “repeatedly pressured” Facebook and Instagram\’s parent company, Meta, throughout the pandemic to “censor certain coronavirus-related content.”
“Over the course of 2021, Biden Administration officials, including from the White House, repeatedly pressured us for months to censor certain COVID-19-related content, including humor and satire, and expressed significant frustration to our team when we did not comply,” the letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said in a statement. “We believe the administration\’s pressure was misguided.”
During the pandemic, Facebook began showing misinformation warnings to users when they commented on or liked posts it deemed contained false information about the coronavirus.
The company also removed posts criticizing COVID-19 vaccines and suggesting the virus was developed in a Chinese lab.
During the 2020 US presidential election campaign, Biden accused social media platforms such as Facebook of “killing people” by allowing the posting of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
“With hindsight and new information, I think we would have made choices that we wouldn\’t have made now,” Zuckerberg said. “I regret not being more vocal about it.”
“As I told my team then, I feel strongly that our content standards should not be compromised due to pressure from the Administration, and we are ready to fight back if something like this happens again.”
Zuckerberg also said Facebook had “temporarily downgraded” a story about the contents of a laptop owned by the president\’s son, Hunter Biden, after the FBI warned that Russia was preparing a disinformation campaign against Biden.
Zuckerberg wrote that it was later revealed that the article was not false, and that “in retrospect, we should not have downgraded this article.”
The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee called Zuckerberg\’s confession a “major victory for free speech.” Post it on the committee\’s Facebook page.
The White House defended its actions during the pandemic, saying it encouraged “responsible behavior to protect public health and safety.”
“Our position has been clear and consistent,” the company said. “We believe that tech companies and other private actors should consider the impact of their actions on the American people and make their own choices about the information they provide.”
Source: www.theguardian.com
