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 humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree’.
He said that this pressure ‘was wrong’ and says he 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.com 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.
Using the donations, both CTCL and CEIR sent funds to local governments to implement administrative practices, voting methods, data-sharing agreements, and outreach programs for the 2020 elections.
Analysis shows Biden-winning counties were three times more likely to get funding from the organizations than Trump ones, and the Democrats were reportedly given a significant boost in key swing states through promotion of practices that have typically favored their vote tally, such as mail-in voting.
In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg acknowledges the perception of bias and promises not to do the same next time.
‘Despite the analysis I’ve seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other,’ he wrote.
‘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.’
In April of 2020, Facebook had announced that it was imposing limits on ‘harmful misinformation about COVID-19’.
That included efforts to claim the so-called ‘lab leak’ theory was true. Within a year, the company reversed the decision.
He also admitted the company ‘shouldn’t have demoted’ the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election.
Democrats and liberal media members suggested that Hunter Biden’s laptop was ‘Russian disinformation’ ahead of the election, leading social media to censor the story.
In June 2024, federal prosecutors used the laptop as a piece of evidence in the first son’s ongoing federal gun trial in Delaware – putting the question of its authenticity at rest.
‘It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,’ Zuckerberg wrote.
In a statement to X, Jordan called this a ‘big win for free speech’.
In February of 2021, the company announced that it was expanding its crackdown to include claims that the virus was man-made. In a blog post, Facebook said that it would not allow conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines.
The social network’s about-face comes on the same day that President Joe Biden asked his intelligence agencies to ‘redouble their efforts’ to pinpoint the origins of the coronavirus.
In 2020, claims by the Trump administration that the coronavirus may have originated in a lab in Wuhan were met with skepticism from mainstream media, which appeared to adopt the view that pathogen was transmitted from bats to humans.
Democrats and anti-Trump commentators in the press accused the then-president and his administration of advancing a theory about China deliberately creating the coronavirus in order to deflect attention away from its handling of efforts to mitigate the spread of the disease in the US.
But reports surfaced about an apparent cover-up of the origins of the virus have prompted a re-examination of the issue.
In October of 2021, it was revealed Facebook researchers are said to have had extensive knowledge that coronavirus and misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine existed on the company’s apps, yet did little to combat it let alone share the information with the White House.
Documents presented by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen show how multiple studies were run producing a number various number detailing the types of users who were most likely to share fake news.
Lawmakers, academics and the White House urged Facebook to share such information publicly.
Facebook employees also knew misinformation about the coronavirus was dominating parts of the social media platform creating ‘echo-chamber-like effects’ ultimately reinforcing hesitancy over the vaccine.
The trove of documents shows that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook carefully investigated how its platforms spread misinformation about life-saving vaccines. They also reveal rank-and-file employees regularly suggested solutions for countering anti-vaccine content on the site, to no avail.
Facebook’s internal discussions were revealed in disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen’s legal counsel.
