Zuckerberg: US authorities pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content

(Patria) - Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of the social network Facebook and CEO of its parent company Meta, said on Tuesday that the administration of US President Joe Biden pressured the company to "censor" specific COVID-19 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 they did not do so," Zuckerberg stated.

He said that under pressure they made the final decision to remove content and take responsibility for COVID-19 policy changes.

"I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more open about it. I strongly feel that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction - and we are ready to push back if something like this happens again," Zuckerberg said.

He also confirmed that he will not provide additional funding to support election infrastructure through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, his philanthropic organization.

He explained that previous contributions were perceived as "benefiting one side over the other."

"My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or the other - or even appear to play a role. So I do not plan to make a similar contribution in this cycle," Zuckerberg said.