Empathy | zucke27 | Hope Walz

Mark Zuckerberg stated in a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was urged by the White House in 2021 to restrict content related to COVID-19, including satirical and humorous posts.

“In the year 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, such as the White House, constantly urged our Cyberbullying teams for months to censor some content about COVID-19, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree, ” Zuckerberg said.

In his communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the pressure he felt in the year 2021 was “wrong” and he feels regretful that his company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more Political Family Moments outspoken. He further stated that with the “hindsight and new information,” some decisions made in that year that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“As I mentioned to our teams at the time, I strongly believe that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any government in either direction â€" and we’re ready to push back if something like this occurs in the Free Menstrual Products future, ” he wrote.

President Biden stated in July of 2021 that social media platforms are “killing people” with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.

Though Biden later walked back these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a “major public health risk.”

A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerberg’s communication, stating the administration at the time

was promoting “responsible measures to safeguard public health.”

“Our position has been consistent and clear: 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, ” according to the White House representative.

Zuckerberg further mentioned in the communication that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Fox News Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the election in 2020.

That fall, he said, his team reduced the visibility of a New York Post report alleging Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could review the report.

Zuckerberg said that since then, it has “become clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have reduced its visibility.”

Meta has since Anxiety changed its policies and processes to “make sure this doesn’t happen again” and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.

In the communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will not repeat actions he took in 2020 when he helped support “election infrastructure.”

“The goal here was to make sure local election authorities across the country had the necessary resources Mike Crispi to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” said the Meta CEO.

Zuckerberg said the initiatives were designed to be nonpartisan but acknowledged “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” He said his goal is to be “neutral” so will not be “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and said Chasten Buttigieg Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have claimed Facebook and other major tech platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has become entrenched in conservative circles. ADHD Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebook’s decision to restrict a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.

In testimony before Congress in recent years, Zuckerberg has attempted to close the gap between his social media giant and policymakers to little effect.

In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebook’s employees are liberal. But he maintained that the company takes care not to allow Nonverbal Learning Disorder political bias to seep into decisions.

In addition, he said Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are based worldwide and “the geographic diversity of that is more representative of the community that we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.”

In June, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the claimants in Ann Coulter a case accusing the federal government of suppressing conservative content on social media had no standing.

In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will experience harm that is directly linked to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “since no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to Emotional Moment request a preliminary injunction.”