Mark Zuckerberg writes in a letter that Facebook withheld content from its users during the corona pandemic. This happened under pressure from the White House, the Meta CEO admits to the US Judiciary Committee. He calls it a mistake.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., has claimed that Facebook was “pressured” by the US government to censor content related to the virus during the coronavirus pandemic. In retrospect, he regrets the company’s decision to comply with the demands.
“For months in 2021, senior Biden administration officials, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire,” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. And while it was Meta’s decision whether to remove content, he continues, “the administration’s pressure was wrong, and I regret that we did not talk about it more openly.”
During the pandemic, Facebook representatives drew the ire of critics of lockdowns, vaccines and mask mandates because moderators removed certain posts that allegedly contained misinformation related to the virus or otherwise violated the company’s policies. The so-called White House briefings have also been reported critically, but have not yet been officially confirmed.
Hunter Biden’s laptop is also a topic
The White House released a statement defending the government’s handling of information on Covid-19. The US portal “PoliticoLink opens in a new tab” quoted from it. “In the face of a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” the statement said.
“Our position has been clear and consistent: We believe that technology companies and other private actors should consider the impact of their actions on the American people while making independent decisions about the information they present.”
Furthermore, Zuckerberg admitted in the letter that his companies withheld content related to the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden before the 2020 election. In the US, the case is known as the “laptop” affair. The newspaper’s report was briefly blocked for users at the time, and later postings were often deleted or their reach restricted.
At the time, it was pointed out that, according to the FBI, the reports might not be real, but just a Russian “disinformation campaign.” However, it is now clear that the laptop and its contents are authentic. Zuckerberg apologized. “It has since been clarified that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight we should not have downgraded the story,” he wrote.
Debate about freedom of expression on internet platforms
In total, Facebook has removed more than 20 million pieces of content in just over a year. Zuckerberg, along with other social media executives, including Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, have complained about past cases of content moderation that they believe went too far.
There is currently a global debate about how far social media companies should go in monitoring the comments, images and other content posted by their users. Some platforms believe they should hold back when it comes to dictating to users what they can and cannot say online, while some governments say an overly laissez-faire attitude can lead to criminal behavior.
Multi-billionaire Elon Musk repeatedly emphasizes that he sees the platform he bought, X, as a bastion of freedom of expression. The European Union (EU), in turn, has repeatedly reminded the entrepreneur of his duty to provide information and its Digital Services Act (DSA).
And over the weekend, French officials arrested Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov, saying the company had failed to adequately combat crime on the messaging app, including the spread of child sexual abuse material.
Zuckerberg distancing himself from the Democrats?
Back to Facebook: On the eve of the US presidential election, in which Vice President Kamala Harris will run against former President Donald Trump, Zuckerberg is also trying to appear bipartisan.
“My goal is to be neutral and not to play a role one way or the other – nor to appear to play a role,” Zuckerberg wrote in the letter, the contents of which were posted on the House Judiciary Committee’s Facebook page and confirmed as authentic by Meta.
He was referring to the contributions made to support election infrastructure during the last presidential election campaign. Commentators interpreted the statements to mean that the multimillionaire apparently had no intention of supporting the Democrats financially in the current presidential election.
At X, Zuckerberg’s letter was widely shared and controversially discussed.
Observers consistently viewed it as positive that the Meta boss admitted his own mistakes. The Republicans in the commission – headed by Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio – celebrated Zuckerberg’s admission in a series of articles on X even as a “great win for freedom of expression”.
krott mit Bloomberg
