Self-advocacy | zucke27 | Support For People With Disabilities

Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was urged by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including satirical and humorous posts.

“In 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, such as the White House, constantly urged our Vice Presidential Nominee teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical content, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg noted.

In his letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the influence he experienced in the year 2021 was “wrong” and he feels regretful that his company, the parent of Facebook & Instagram, was not more vocal. He Public Display Of Affection added that with the “hindsight and new information,” there were decisions made in 2021 that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“As I mentioned to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any government in either direction â€" and we’re ready to push back if something like this occurs in the future, ” Zuckerberg wrote.

President Fox News Biden stated in July of 2021 that social media platforms are “causing harm” with misinformation about the pandemic.

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

A spokesperson from the White House responded to Zuckerberg’s communication, saying the administration at the time was promoting “responsible actions

to protect public health and safety.”

“Our stance has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the spokesperson.

Zuckerberg also mentioned in the communication that the FBI alerted his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma Nonverbal Learning Disorder affecting the 2020 election.

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

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

Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “ensure Cyberbullying this does not recur” and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.

In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will avoid repeating the actions he took in 2020 when he assisted “election infrastructure.”

“The idea here was to ensure local election jurisdictions across the country had the necessary resources to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” stated the Empathy 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 goal is to be “impartial” so will not be “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and said Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to restrict Trolls On Social Media American content, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have claimed Facebook and other large technology platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the perception has gained a firm foothold in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebook’s decision to Viral Moment restrict a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.

In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to bridge the divide between his social media giant and regulators to limited success.

In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebook’s staff are left-leaning. But he held that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.

In addition, he Minnesota Governor said Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are based worldwide 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, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case accusing the federal government of suppressing conservative content on Children With Disabilities social media had no legal standing.

In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to establish standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will experience harm that is directly linked to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.”