Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that he now regrets the outsized role his company played in not only helping the Biden-Harris administration censor Americans' protected speech, but also suppressing critical information ahead of the 2020 election.
Recent
American ElectionsZuckerberg also suggested he would end the “Zack Bucks” program, likely to ease concerns from some lawmakers. Well-funded Partisan election interference.
While it is unclear whether Zuckerberg's revelations will have any real-world implications (such as influencing the censorship lawsuit filed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. against the Biden-Harris administration), the committee still called his letter a “major victory for free speech.”
Suppression of dissent
Zuckerberg is
Letter of denunciation House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote that in 2021, senior Biden-Harris administration officials, including from the White House, “repeatedly pressured us for months to censor specific COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed significant frustration to our team when we did not comply.”
The committee has obtained ample evidence in recent months and years detailing the extent to which Facebook worked with the Biden-Harris Administration to silence criticism of experimental COVID-19 vaccines, lockdown measures, mask-wearing and other medically accurate information that undermines the Biden Administration's preferred narrative about the pandemic – information that the Biden Administration knew early on was inaccurate.
“We are responsible for our decisions.”
for example,
April 2021 email The document, circulated by a Facebook employee ostensibly on behalf of Zuckerberg and then-chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, said the Biden administration had taken issue with “humorous memes that discourage vaccination” and had instructed the social media company to remove them.
Blaze News previously reported that the banned meme in question wasPointing at Rick DaltonThe “template” borrows a still from the 2019 film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” in which Leonardo DiCaprio's character points out something on a television.
The meme, which the Biden administration has asked to be removed from the platform, was captioned “Ten years from now, you'll be looking at the TV and asking… 'Have you or a loved one received the COVID vaccine? You may be eligible…'” and appears to have been shared more than 385,000 times.
Beyond memes and medical facts, Facebook is also loyal
Censored content The most credible explanation for COVID-19 is currently a laboratory leak.
In his letter on Monday, Zuckerberg acknowledged that he knew “the government pressure was wrong” and that although the company could have told the Biden-Harris administration to “stop,” it ultimately decided to follow the government's lead and remove content and censor users.
“Ultimately, the decision whether to remove content is ours and we take responsibility for the decisions we make, including the COVID-19 related modifications we've made to our enforcement approach under pressure,” Zuckerberg said.
While Facebook was happy to comply with the Democratic administration's demands, Zuckerberg seemed aware that he might soon be negotiating with a Republican administration when he suggested that “if this happens again, we're prepared to fight back.”
Election interference
In his letter, Zuckerberg also acknowledged that Facebook suppressed accurate reporting from the newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton ahead of the 2020 election.
“Ahead of the 2020 election, the FBI had warned about possible Russian disinformation efforts involving the Biden family and Burisma,” Facebook's CEO wrote. “When we saw a New York Post article that fall about allegations of corruption involving the family of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, we sent the story to our fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while we waited for a response.”
“It has since become clear that this report was not Russian disinformation. In retrospect, we should never have downgraded this story,” Zuckerberg added.
Among the concerns raised by the New York Post:
Suppressed reporting A Burisma executive advisor had thanked Hunter Biden for introducing him to Joe Biden about a year before Biden, as vice president, allegedly threatened the Eastern European country and forced the firing of a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
The report also suggested that Joe Biden, through his son's and his own actions, may have been a compromised candidate, or at the very least, dishonest.
“Your enemy rigged the election and got his reward: the White House.”
While Facebook tried to bury the reports, elements of the intelligence community hostile to President Donald Trump, including security state activists, swooped in to protect Biden in the final weeks before the election. Release In an open letter dated October 19, 2020, they argued that the story about Hunter Biden's laptop “bears all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation” intended to damage Biden's position as the Democratic nominee.
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell later
testified He told Congress he prepared the letter “to help Vice President Biden” and, more specifically, “to help him win the election.”
In his letter to Jordan, Zuckerberg assured Biden that Facebook had since changed its policies and processes “to ensure this never happens again,” having helped give Biden a firm understanding of the situation during the 2020 election, and noted that content is no longer temporarily downgraded while so-called fact-checkers decide whether it's fit for public viewing.
The Facebook CEO also addressed donations made during the last presidential election to “support election infrastructure.”
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are said to have spent more than $400 million on grants aimed at supporting election administration and voter accommodation. Critics He suggested that “Zach Bucks” may have been a partisan ploy aimed at boosting Democratic votes.
“They are designed to be nonpartisan and span urban, rural and suburban communities.”
Written “Yet I know some people believe this work favored one side, when the analysis I've seen shows otherwise. My goal is to remain neutral and not play or appear to play a role for one side or the other, so I will not be making a similar contribution this quarter,” Zuckerberg said.
“Zach Bucks” may not be necessary in this election, given that the federal government is actively working to implement President Biden's Executive Order 14019, which may prove to be much more effective in mobilizing Democratic supporters.
reaction
The committee called the letter a “major victory for free speech,” but Blaze News columnist
Orlon McIntyre “No, victory happens when your opponent pays a price. Does somebody go to jail? Does somebody get impeached? Does somebody get fined? No, you just get an admission that your opponent stole an election and got the reward of the White House.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) similarly suggested the letter was too little, too late.
write“Facebook may have changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Four years later, we're getting a letter saying, 'We're sorry.'”
“Mark Zuckerberg has come clean and finally admitted what he and META did to influence the 2020 election is known to everyone.”
Written Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.)
Elon Musk responded to the letter:
Featured“That seems like a First Amendment violation.”
Podcaster Patrick Bett David
Guessed There are three possible reasons why Zuckerberg made these confessions: 1. He is acting honorably.[;] 2. He broke with the Democratic Party[; and/or] 3. He's ahead of the whistleblowers.
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