On the bright side, Zuckerberg is admitting to it. He censored COVID information on Facebook. He also admitted to President Joe Biden’s role in that. Yes, it comes three years after the deed that silenced dissent and that neither Zuckerberg nor Facebook/Meta will face any repercussions. And don’t expect anything to come out of the administration. A letter was sent to Rep. Jim Jordan about content moderation.
Zuckerberg was pressured
There had been an inquiry regarding content moderation on social media platforms leading up to the 2020 election and after. Zuckerberg said,
“There’s a lot of talk right now around how the U.S. government interacts with companies like Meta, and I want to be clear about our position. Our platforms are for everyone — we’re about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way. As part of this, we regularly hear from governments around the world and others with various concerns around public discourse and public safety.”
The most powerful elected government in the world had shared concerns about public discourse. It sounds like government didn’t like certain words.
Zuckerberg wasn’t happy but he didn’t dare go against the feds.
“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree. Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure. I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
It can be better to apologize later
In addition, Zuckerberg didn’t think they should have censored information about the Hunter Biden laptop either. The FBI had warned him
“about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election. That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply. It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”
He added that Meta’s platforms “no longer temporarily demotes things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers.”
Some apologies are more helpful than others. In terms of public discourse, in 2024 Pew Research reported 68% of Americans use Facebook and 47% use Instagram, Meta’s two biggest platforms in America.
Both have over taken email and other social networks for expressions of speech. Zuckerberg admitted that yes, the government told his company what Americans could say so government had him shut down free speech.
Not edicts
It wasn’t actually edicts but lots of pressure campaigns, taking the onus off the government. Elon Musk is at war with the government now because he hasn’t bowed to that pressure.
There maybe one good thing to come out of this. While it kept Biden’s administration up for longer than it should have been, maybe it will keep the narrative for Kamala from gaining traction.
If Zuckerberg and Musk are up front about it, it’s going to be harder for the administration to push unfavorable or unsavory information. The pressure will pushed right back in the government’s face.
