Zuckerberg says in his letter to a House committee that the tech company made some choices during the pandemic that it wouldn’t make again.
CEO of the technology company Meta Mark Zuckerberg criticizes the US administration for efforts to influence publications about the corona pandemic on Facebook.
Zuckerberg says that from now on, he would resist similar pressure attempts.
The founder of Facebook expresses his thoughts in his letter to a committee of the US House of Representatives.
In the letter, Zuckerberg raises several issues that he considers controversial, related to the moderation of Facebook’s content.
According to Meta’s CEO, in 2021 the president Joe Biden the administration repeatedly pressured Facebook to censor some content related to the corona pandemic, including humor and satire.
“The administration’s pressure was wrong”
Mark Zuckerberg says that administration representatives expressed their frustration that Meta disagreed with them on censorship.
– I think the administration’s pressure was wrong. I’m sorry we weren’t more open about it, Zuckerberg says.
Zuckerberg says the company is responsible for decisions regarding Facebook’s content, such as what kind of corona-related changes the company made to its operating methods. According to Zuckerberg, the company made some choices that it would not make again.
According to Zuckerberg, Facebook should not bow to pressure, whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.
– We will fight back if something like this happens again, Zuckerberg says.
Zuckerberg’s letter was released by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. They called the letter a victory for free speech on messaging service X.
According to the AP news agency, the White House responded to Zuckerberg’s letter with a statement in which it said that the administration supported responsible measures to protect citizens’ health during the corona virus.
According to the White House, technology companies should consider the impact of their actions on citizens while making independent decisions about content.
In the letter, Zuckerberg also commented on outgoing President Biden’s son Hunter Biden about hiding the news on Facebook.
The CEO says that the security service FBI warned Meta about a possible Russian disinformation operation regarding the Biden family before the 2020 presidential election. Because of this, Meta hid from view the New York Post’s news about corruption suspicions against the Bidens.
Zuckerberg now says that the news should not have been hidden, because it later turned out that the news was not about Russian disinformation.
According to the CEO, the company has changed its practices so that it no longer hides articles from view in the United States during a possible inspection.
Sources: AFP, Reuters