Gus Walz | hotlive25 | Hope Walz

Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a communication to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was influenced by the White House in the year 2021 to restrict content related to COVID-19, including satirical and humorous posts.

“In the year 2021, senior officials from the Biden White House, such as the administration, constantly Trolls On Social Media urged our teams for months to censor some content about COVID-19, such as humor and satire, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg noted.

In his letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the influence he experienced in the year 2021 was “inappropriate” and he feels regretful that his company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was

not more outspoken. Zuckerberg added that with the “hindsight and new information,” some decisions made in 2021 that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“Like I told our teams back then, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration from either side â€" and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again, ” he wrote.

President ADHD Biden stated in July 2021 that social media networks are “killing people” with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.

Though Biden later walked back these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a “serious threat to public health.”

A White House spokesperson responded to Zuckerberg’s communication, saying the administration at the time was promoting “responsible measures to safeguard Social Dominance public health.”

“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 content they share, ” according to the spokesperson.

Zuckerberg also mentioned in the letter that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting Cyberbullying the 2020 election.

That fall, he said, his team reduced the visibility of reporting from the New York Post alleging the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the report.

Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has “become clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”

Meta has since changed its policies and processes to “make Viral Video sure this doesn’t happen again” and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.

In the communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support “election infrastructure.”

“The goal here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to facilitate Public Display Of Affection safe voting during a pandemic,” stated the Meta CEO.

Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were intended to be neutral but acknowledged “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” Zuckerberg stated his aim is to be “neutral” so will not be “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and said Zuckerberg “has admitted Mike Crispi that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to restrict American content, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have claimed Facebook and other large technology platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta enforces its rules impartially, the perception has become entrenched in conservative communities. Republican Online Bullying lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebook’s decision to restrict a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.

In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to close the gap between his social media giant and policymakers to little effect.

In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebook’s staff are left-leaning. But he maintained that the company ensures political bias Self-advocacy does not influence its decisions.

In addition, he stated Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are globally located and “our global team better represents the diversity of the community we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.”

In June of this year, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the claimants Chasten Buttigieg in a case alleging the federal government of censoring conservative voices on social media had no standing.

In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will experience harm that is traceable to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “since no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to Acceptance Speech seek a preliminary injunction.”