Washington. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized pressure from the Biden administration in 2021 to remove content about Covid-19 from Facebook and said he would resist similar situations in the future in a letter sent to the US Congress on Monday.
In his letter, the Facebook founder maintains that the government “was wrong” to request the moderation of content related to the pandemic on its social networks.
The White House “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor some content about Covid-19, including humor and satire,” Zuckerberg wrote.
“I think the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more forthright about it,” he added.
Government says responsible actions were encouraged to protect public health and safety
The White House has defended its actions during the pandemic. In the United States, Covid has killed more than a million people amid political battles over vaccines and attempts to limit the spread of the virus.
“In the face of a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” a White House spokesman said Tuesday.
“We believe that technology companies and other private actors should take into account the effects of their actions,” he added.
Zuckerberg’s letter was addressed to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a past critic of the tech mogul, and was welcomed by Republicans.
“I feel strongly that we should not have compromised our content standards under pressure from any administration under any approach, and we stand ready to respond if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg wrote.
In early 2021, Facebook added what Zuckerberg called “credible information” labels to posts about Covid-19 vaccines. That label came after it took steps in April 2020 — when the virus had caused lockdowns and radical changes to daily life around the world — to warn users who shared misinformation about Covid-19.
Republicans consider the letter a “victory”
Two months before a tight presidential election that is drawing intense attention to online misinformation, Republicans seized on the letter as a triumph.
It’s a “huge victory for free speech,” the conservative-controlled committee’s X account posted.
In recent months, Republican representatives in Congress have attacked social media and technology companies, alleging they suppress or censor conservative views.
Experts have warned that this year’s US general election could be flooded with misinformation on social media due to the proliferation of artificial intelligence and other tools to produce fake news and content that could mislead voters.
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– 2024-09-04 19:08:12
