Zuckerberg regrets bowing to White House ‘pressure’ over Covid

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets bowing to what he said was pressure from the Biden administration to “censor” content on Facebook and Instagram during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter sent to a US House committee chair, he said senior officials, including some from the White House, pressured Meta to remove content in 2021.

The White House has defended its actions, saying it encouraged “responsible actions to protect public health and safety”.

Mr Zuckerberg also said his firm briefly “demoted” content relating to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, ahead of the 2020 election, after the FBI warned of “a potential Russian disinformation” operation.

The content did not turn out to be part of such an operation, Mr Zuckerberg said.

Addressing the Covid content, Mr Zuckerberg wrote: “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 humour and satire.

“We made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.

“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.”

Mr Zuckerberg said he and Meta would be ready to “push back” if something similar happened in the future.

His letter was addressed to Jim Jordan, the chair of the House judiciary committee, which has been investigating content moderation on online platforms. Republicans said the letter was a “big win for free speech, external“.

In a statement issued to the website Politico, external, the White House stood by its actions.

It said: “Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present.”