Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Admits White House 'Pressured' Him To Censor COVID-19 Content, Hunter Biden Laptop Story

In a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday evening, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the White House "pressured" his company to censor COVID-19 content on social media. He added that he regretted some of the decisions made in response to government requests.

Zuckerberg's letter comes as the House Judiciary Committee investigates Meta's content moderation decisions during the Biden administration. It confirms what many Republican lawmakers have suspected or uncovered in recent years.

"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 explained. "Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure. I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it."

The billionaire Facebook founder admitted that he regretted the decisions the company made when confronted with the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020, which was falsely alleged to be Russian disinformation by dozens of intelligence officials. "It's since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn't have demoted the story. We've changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn't happen again -- for instance, we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers."

Zuckerberg noted that "with the benefit of hindsight and new information," he would not make the same error again in 2024 that was made during 2020. "Like I said to our teams at the time, 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 explained to Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH).

In addition to addressing content moderation, the Meta CEO explained to the committee that he would no longer be putting money into election infrastructure like was done in 2020, a move that Republicans called "Zuckerbucks." He stated that he would be opting out of providing funds in the upcoming election, telling Rep. Jordan, "My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another -- or to even appear to be playing a role."

In response to the letter, the White House told POLITICO that it "encouraged" social media companies to take action to protect the public. "When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety," the White House said. "Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present."

Read Mark Zuckerberg's full letter below:

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