Zuckerberg’s comments came in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, that touched on a series of disagreements between Meta and the Biden administration, and were highlighted by the American newspaper, The Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg wrote that senior Biden administration officials, including from the White House, “have repeatedly pressed our teams for months to censor certain COVID-related content, including humor and satire, and expressed deep frustration when we disagreed.”
At the time, Facebook’s stated goal in censoring content related to the crisis was to push millions to get COVID-19 vaccines.
Zuckerberg said he believed the pressure from the US administration was wrong, adding: “I regret that we were not more upfront about this,” adding that the company “made some choices that, with the benefit of new information, we would not make today.”
“I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards because of pressure from any administration in any direction, and we are prepared to respond if something like this happens again,” he continued in his letter.
Earlier, the White House said its discussions with social media companies during the coronavirus crisis were aimed at promoting vaccine adoption and spreading awareness of other public health precautions.
At the time, administration officials feared that many Americans would hesitate to get vaccinated because of the “false information” they saw on Facebook.
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