Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg regrets bowing to White House pressure to censor COVID content

Meta (NASDAQ:META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was wrong for Biden administration officials to pressure the company to censor COVID-19 content, adding that he regrets not pushing back against their demands.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration when we didn’t agree,” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” the Meta (META) chief said, adding that the company would no longer make such decisions.

“I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again,” he said.

Zuckerberg also mentioned an incident in which the FBI warned of a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Ukrainian firm Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election.

Meta (META) temporarily hid content related to media coverage of corruption allegations involving Hunter Biden. “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg said.

He also said he wouldn’t make contributions to support electoral infrastructure this election cycle, like he did in the last one. “I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other. My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another – or to even appear to be playing a role.”

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee said the letter was a “big win” for free speech and election integrity.

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