Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Admits Regret for Censorship COVID-19 Content After Government Pressure
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that he regrets complying with the Biden administration’s orders, claiming that Facebook was pressured to block COVID-19 information during the pandemic. The tech mogul expressed his worries about social media content moderation in an ongoing probe in a letter to US Representative Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on August 26.
He said that in 2021, top representatives of President Joe Biden‘s administration repeatedly pressured the business to block specific COVID-19 content, including humor and satire. He acknowledged that the Meta team ultimately decided what should be censored, but he also pointed out that the team made some decisions that, in the light of new information and hindsight, they would not have made at the time.
I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction.
Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg was Criticized as Much as Congratulated
The CEO of Meta expressed regret in the same letter for de-promoting a story on purported Russian disinformation and Hunter Biden‘s laptop in 2020 while he awaited fact-checkers. He said that the platform’s regulations had been altered to stop a repeat of the censoring, which had been closely examined at the time.
On X, proponents of decentralization and free speech responded strongly to the letter. Director of Digital Asset Strategy at VanEck Gabor Gubacs shared the letter on X and expressed his satisfaction that Zuckerberg made it public.
Every official who illegally pressured media companies to censor their users should be named, investigated, and tried in court. People had enough. The government doesn’t control speech. The earth isn’t a prison and they aren’t our wardens,
Gubacs
On the other hand, US Senator Mike Lee posed the question, “Who else wishes Mark Zuckerberg’s regret had struck sooner rather than later, before the damage was done?”
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