Mr. Zuckerberg made his allegations to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating how content posted on social networking platforms is managed.
“In 2021 Senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19-related material, including humor and satire, and expressed great frustration with our teams when we refused to do so.” , – according to M. Zuckerberg’s letter.
He admitted that ultimately it was “our decision” which material should be disposed of, but that the pressure from the government was “bad”.
“I regret that we didn’t talk about it more loudly,” he wrote, adding that he now believes that the decisions made then will not need to be repeated today.
“As I told our teams at the time, I strongly believe that we should not compromise our material standards because of pressure from any administration, and that we are prepared to fight back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg wrote.
President Joe Biden and senior health officials such as US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy have accused social media platforms of spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.
in 2021 in July, Mr. Biden even said that platforms like Facebook are “killing people” with the lies they spread.
On Tuesday, the White House responded to Mr. Zuckerberg’s letter, saying it was merely “encouraging responsible behavior to protect public health and safety.”
“Our position has been clear and consistent: We believe that technology companies and other private actors should consider the consequences of their actions for the American people when making independent decisions about the information they share,” a White House spokesman said.
2024-08-28 00:49:28