'Govt pressure was wrong’: Meta CEO Zuckerberg accuses Biden administration of censorship of Covid content

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has accused the Biden administration of exerting pressure on Facebook to censor certain Covid-19-related content, including posts that were humorous or satirical. In a letter to the Republican-led US House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg detailed how "senior officials" from the White House repeatedly pressed his team for months in 2021 to take down specific posts.

Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook did make some changes in response to this pressure but expressed regret over not being more vocal about the government's demands at the time. He admitted that with hindsight and new information, some of the actions taken by Facebook during that period might have been handled differently.

The Meta CEO emphasised that while his platform regularly receives input from various governments about public discourse and safety, the final decision on content removal was Facebook's responsibility. He also noted that the Biden administration was frustrated when Facebook resisted some of their demands for censorship.

Allegations of content throttling
Zuckerberg's letter also touched on a controversial decision made before the 2020 US presidential election. He revealed that Meta had down-ranked a story about alleged corruption involving the Biden family after receiving a warning from the FBI about a potential Russian disinformation campaign. However, he admitted that this decision was a mistake, as the story turned out not to be part of any disinformation effort.

Reactions and political implications
The letter, posted by the House Judiciary panel on X (formerly Twitter), has sparked significant political debate. The panel highlighted that Zuckerberg admitted to Facebook censoring content under pressure from the Biden administration and throttling the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Elon Musk, who retweeted the letter, suggested that this could be a violation of the First Amendment, which protects free speech in the US. This claim adds fuel to ongoing discussions about the role of social media companies in moderating content and their relationship with government authorities.