New Delhi:
In a letter to the US Congress, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that the US government under Joe Biden has “repeatedly pressured” Meta to censor certain content on its platforms.
In the letter to the US House of Representatives, Zuckerberg said the platform needed to make a number of changes, which “with the benefit of hindsight and new information” they will not make today. He added that he regrets not being “more candid” about it.
“In 2021, senior Biden administration officials, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor some COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed significant frustration with our teams when we disagreed Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to remove the content, and we own our decisions, including the COVID-19-related changes we made in the wake of this push I regret that we have not been more forthcoming about it,” the letter said.
Zuckerberg said he believed Meta should not compromise its content standards under pressure from any government. “We are prepared to strike back if something like this happens again,” he said.
The Meta CEO also addressed an FBI warning about a “potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma ahead of the 2020 election.”
“When we saw a story in the New York Post that fall reporting on allegations of corruption involving the family of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily downgraded it pending an answer. Clearly the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect we should not have downgraded the story. For example, we’ve changed our policies and processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again. For example, we no longer temporarily reduce business in the sector. US awaiting fact-checkers,” he said.
Mr Zuckerberg reiterated his support for electoral infrastructure ahead of November’s presidential election. He said he wanted to strengthen the infrastructure in an impartial manner. “I know some people believe this work benefited one party over another. My goal is to be neutral and not play a role or even appear to play a role one way or another So I don’t intend to play a role.” similar contribution this cycle,” he said.