Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that he regrets not being more vocal about “government pressure” to remove COVID-19 related content.
Zuckerberg said Biden administration officials “repeatedly pressured” Facebook and Instagram's parent company, Meta, in 2021 to “censor” content.
“I believe the government's pressure was misguided and I regret that we did not speak out more clearly,” he wrote in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
“As I told my team then, I feel strongly that our content standards should not be compromised in response to pressure from the administration, and we are prepared to fight back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg added.
The Meta CEO also said that a New York Post story about corruption allegations involving President Biden's family “should not have been downgraded” ahead of the 2020 election while it waited for verification by fact-checkers.
He noted that social media companies have since updated their policies and processes, including not down-ranking content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.
Zuckerberg also said in Monday's letter that the company does not plan to donate money to local governments to help with election infrastructure this election, as it did in the 2020 election.
The donations, which were “designed to be nonpartisan,” were criticized for being unfairly distributed between left- and right-leaning neighborhoods, and Republicans dubbed them “Zuckerbucks.”
“Yet I know some will believe this effort favored one side, when the analysis I've seen indicates otherwise,” Zuckerberg said. “My goal is to remain neutral and not play a role or appear to play a role either way.”
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee hailed the letter Monday night as a “major victory for free speech.”
“Mark Zuckerberg admitted to three things: 1. The Biden-Harris Administration 'pressured' Facebook to censor Americans; 2. Facebook censored Americans; and 3. Facebook suppressed stories about Hunter Biden's laptop,” the committee wrote to X.
“Mark Zuckerberg also informed the Judiciary Committee that he will not be spending money during this election cycle. That's right, no more financial support from Mr Zuckerberg. A huge win for election integrity,” he added.
Meta and other social media companies have long been accused by Republicans of censoring conservative content on their platforms.
The Biden administration's dealings with social media companies over the removal of misinformation about the coronavirus and the election were at the center of litigation before the Supreme Court last term.
In a 6-3 decision in June, the court rejected challenges to the agency's interactions with the companies, finding that the two Republican attorneys general and private groups that brought the lawsuit lacked legal standing, but the justices did not rule on the First Amendment issues in the case.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
