Tuesday, August 27, 2024 - Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that the Biden administration was 'wrong' to demand Facebook censor what they deemed 'COVID misinformation' during the pandemic.
The Meta CEO said in a letter to the House
Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan that they'll fight back against any
attempts at censorship in the future and also admitted the company had
'demoted' stories about Hunter Biden's laptop.
He wrote that the White House 'repeatedly pressured our
teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humour and
satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't
agree'.
He said this pressure ‘was wrong’ and regrets 'that we were
not more outspoken about it'.
'We made some choices that, with the benefit of
hindsight and new information, we wouldn't make today,' he added.
'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.'
A spokesperson for the White House told DailyMail in a
statement that the Biden administration's policy is to encourage big tech to
act responsibly.
'When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety. 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.'
A spokesperson for Meta told the Wall Street
Journal the letter spoke for itself.
Zuckerberg also said that Meta would not repeat what it did
in 2020, funding non-profits to fund local election efforts, which
Republicans criticized as 'Zuckerbucks' meant to assist liberals.
He and his wife Priscilla Chan gave nearly $420million to
nonprofits that aided in the administration and infrastructure of the 2020
election , and heavily favored Democrat counties.
Zuckerberg, 37, and Chan, 36, donated $419.5million to The
Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and The Center for Election
Innovation and Research (CEIR), which the report says was given with specific
conditions.
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