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Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on recently that Meta was influenced by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to limit certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical and humorous posts.

“In the year 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, such as the administration, constantly urged Fox News our teams for an extended period to remove certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical content, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg said.

In his communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he experienced in 2021 was “inappropriate” and he regrets that his company, the parent of Facebook & Instagram, was not more vocal. Zuckerberg Democratic National Convention further stated that with the “hindsight and new information,” there were decisions made in that year that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“Like I told our teams back then, I strongly believe that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any Administration from either side â€" and we’re ready to push back if something like this occurs in the future, ” he wrote.

President Acceptance Speech Biden stated in July of 2021 that social media platforms are “causing harm” with misinformation about the pandemic.

Though Biden later revised these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a “serious threat to public health.”

A spokesperson from the White House responded to Zuckerberg’s letter, saying the administration at the time was encouraging “responsible actions to MAGA Supporters protect public health and safety.”

“Our position has been consistent and clear: we believe tech companies and private entities should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the spokesperson.

Zuckerberg also noted in the letter that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting the Social Dominance election in 2020.

That fall, he said, his team reduced the visibility of a New York Post report alleging the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could review the report.

Zuckerberg stated that since then, it has “become clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”

Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “make sure this

doesn’t happen again” and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.

In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted “electoral infrastructure.”

“The goal here was to ensure local election authorities across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” Special Education stated the Meta CEO.

Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were intended to be neutral but said “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” Zuckerberg said his goal is to be “impartial” so will not be “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and said Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook Public Display Of Affection to censor Americans, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have claimed Facebook and other large technology platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the perception has gained a firm foothold in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically scrutinized Facebook’s decision to Chasten Buttigieg restrict a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.

In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has sought to close the gap between his social media company and policymakers to limited success.

In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebook’s employees are left-leaning. But he maintained that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.

In addition, he stated Gwen Walz Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, are based worldwide and “the geographic diversity of that is more representative of the community that we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.”

In June of this year, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the claimants in a case alleging the federal government of Free Menstrual Products censoring conservative voices on social media had no standing.

In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the immediate future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.”