Mark Zuckerberg’s Letter to Congress: Regret Over Government Pressure and Commitment to Election Neutrality
In a recent letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed regret for not being more vocal about the “government pressure” to remove COVID-19 related content from social media platforms. Zuckerberg revealed that in 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured” Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to “censor” content.
Zuckerberg admitted, “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken.” He emphasized to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that Meta should not compromise its content standards due to pressure from any administration, pledging that the company is prepared to push back against such actions in the future.
Zuckerberg also addressed the controversy surrounding the demotion of a New York Post story about corruption allegations involving President Biden’s family during the 2020 election. He acknowledged that Meta “shouldn’t have demoted” the story while awaiting fact-checking and noted that the company has since updated its policies. Specifically, Meta no longer demotes content in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers.
Furthermore, Zuckerberg stated in his letter that he does not plan to contribute to local jurisdictions to support election infrastructure in the upcoming cycle, as he did during the 2020 election. These contributions, although intended to be non-partisan, were criticized and dubbed “Zuckerbucks” by Republicans, who claimed they were unfairly distributed between left-leaning and right-leaning areas.
“Despite analyses showing otherwise, I know that some believe this work benefited one party over the other,” Zuckerberg wrote. “My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another—or even appear to be playing a role.”
House Judiciary Republicans hailed Zuckerberg’s letter as a “big win for free speech.” They pointed out that Zuckerberg admitted to three key points: the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook complied with this censorship, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.
The letter also confirmed that Zuckerberg would not spend money in the upcoming election cycle, which the panel described as a “huge win for election integrity.”
Meta and other social media platforms have long faced accusations, particularly from Republicans, of censoring conservative content. The Biden administration’s communication with social media companies regarding the removal of COVID-19 and election misinformation was a central issue in a recent Supreme Court case. In a 6-3 decision in June, the court dismissed challenges to these communications, ruling that the Republican attorneys general and private parties lacked legal standing. However, the justices did not address the First Amendment issues involved.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment on the matter.