Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has accused the Biden administration of censorship in the context of the corona pandemic in an open letter. In the letter, which is addressed to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican Jim Jordan, who is close to Trump, Zuckerberg reports how employees of the Biden administration “have repeatedly and for months put pressure on our employees to censor certain Covid-19 content.” This also affected humor and satire.
The Republican-dominated committee had repeatedly addressed the question of how Facebook and other social media can and should moderate the content published on their platforms.
Zuckerberg writes that he believes this pressure from the government is wrong and admits that he has made mistakes himself. “I regret that we did not make this matter more public.” In the future, the company will no longer bow to pressure from parties or governments, regardless of which political direction it comes from. The company is ready to “strike back” if something like this happens again.
Letter is exploited in conservative circles
Zuckerberg also reports that the FBI warned Facebook about Russian disinformation about the Biden family before the 2020 presidential election. When the New York Post published an article about it, it was temporarily removed from the website and checked. This probably refers to the text about Hunter Biden’s laptop (background information and a chronology of events can be found here).
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However, the report turned out to be authentic and not a fake Russian campaign. “We have changed our policies and processes so that something like this will not happen again.” Zuckerberg further stressed that he does not want to play a role in political debates or the presidential election campaign. The aim is “not to even give the appearance of playing a role.”
This letter is now being exploited by conservative circles. Elon Musk, who has repeatedly publicly spoken out in favor of Trump returning to the White House, commented on the post: “Sounds like a violation of the First Amendment.” This prohibits Congress from interfering with essential civil liberties, such as freedom of expression or freedom of the press.
For the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, whose X-Account distributed Zuckerberg’s letter, Zuckerberg admitted three things. “First, the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans. Second, Facebook censored Americans. Third, Facebook suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story.” The fact that this is now becoming public is a “huge win for freedom of expression,” they said.
