Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of the social media company Meta, is handing Republicans political victories ahead of the 2024 presidential election, acquiescing to years of GOP grievances over his company’s policies.
In recent days, the Meta chief executive has made newsworthy public statements implicitly supporting right-wing “censorship” narratives and offered praise for Donald Trump as “badass” – even as he claimed he wanted to appear “neutral” and nonpartisan.
On Monday, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the powerful House Judiciary Committee, stating that the Biden administration had “pressured” Meta to “censor” content during the pandemic.
“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,” Zuckerberg said.
The Meta chief added that the pressure he felt was “wrong” and he came to “regret” that his company, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more outspoken.
The letter was immediately weaponized by Trump, who used it to once again promote the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to SUPPRESS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY (& much more!) IN OTHER WORDS, THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday morning, after Zuckerberg’s letter became public.
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee also welcomed Zuckerberg’s letter, posting a copy Monday on social media and using it to attack President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now running as the Democratic nominee for president.
The letter was sent amid a two-year investigation by House Republicans into the content moderation policies of major social media networks.
It’s not uncommon for social media companies to reevaluate their approach to content moderation in the run-up to elections, and some experts now believe the companies may have overdone it at times in the 2020 cycle.
