The emotional exchange between Tim Walz and his teenage son, Gus, has sparked a wave of admiration and support, but it has also provoked ugly bullying attacks on the internet.
The emotional exchange between Tim Walz and his teenage son, Gus, has sparked a wave of admiration and support, but it has also provoked ugly bullying attacks on the internet.
Blog Article
Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his company was urged by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to limit certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.
“In the year 2021, senior members from the Biden White House, including the White House, constantly urged our teams for an extended period to remove certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg noted.
In his letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg described that the pressure he experienced in the year 2021 was “inappropriate” and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more vocal. He further stated that with the “benefit of hindsight and new information,” there were decisions made in 2021 that “wouldn’t be made today.”
“As I mentioned to our teams at the time, I strongly believe that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side – and we’re prepared to resist if something like this happens again, ” he wrote.
President Biden remarked in July 2021 that social media platforms are “killing people” with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
Though Biden later walked back these comments, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a “serious threat to public health.”
A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerberg’s communication, stating the administration at the time was promoting “responsible measures to safeguard public health.”
“Our stance has been consistent and clear: we think tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the White House representative.
Zuckerberg also mentioned in the letter that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting the 2020 election.
That fall, Zuckerberg said, his team reduced the visibility of a New York Post report accusing Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the report.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has “been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story.”
Meta has since changed its policies and processes to “ensure this does not recur” and will no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.
In the letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will avoid repeating the actions he took in 2020 when he assisted “election infrastructure.”
“The goal here was to make sure local election authorities across the country had the necessary resources to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,” said the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg said the initiatives were intended to be neutral but acknowledged “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” Zuckerberg stated his goal is to be “neutral” so he will not make “a similar contribution this cycle.”
The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to restrict American content, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.”
The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have accused Facebook and other major tech platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has become entrenched in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebook’s decision to restrict a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.
In Congressional testimony in the past years, Zuckerberg has sought to close the gap between his social media giant and regulators to little effect.
In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg acknowledged that many of Facebook’s staff are left-leaning. But he maintained that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.
In addition, he stated Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are globally located and “our global team better represents the diversity of the community we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.”
In June, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case alleging the federal government of suppressing conservative content on social media had no standing.
In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will experience harm that is traceable to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “since no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.”
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