Zuckerberg claims US administration pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content

ISTANBUL

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of the social media service Facebook and CEO of its parent company Meta, claimed on Tuesday that the Biden administration pressured the company to "censor" specific COVID-19 content during the pandemic.

"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 humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree," Zuckerberg said in a letter.

He said they made the final decision to remove content and take responsibility for changes to the COVID-19 policies under pressure.

“I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it," he said.

"I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again," he added.

Zuckerberg also confirmed that he would not provide additional funding to support electoral infrastructure through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, his philanthropic organization.

He explained that the previous contributions had been perceived as "benefiting one party over the other."

"My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle," he said.

Meanwhile, the US House Judiciary Committee, aligned with the Republican Party, shared information about Zuckerberg's letter on X.

"Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things: 1. Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans. 2. Facebook censored Americans. 3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story. Big win for free speech.," it said.