Mark Zuckerberg expresses ‘regret’ at parent company Meta’s handling of content moderation during pandemic
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta , has said his 'goal is to be neutral' during the upcoming US presidential election. Photograph: Kenny Holston/The New York Times Meta Platforms Inc chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg alleged that Facebook was “pressured” by the US government to censor content related to Covid-19 during the global pandemic and that he regrets the company’s decision to accede to the demands.
“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,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to the Committee on the Judiciary of the US House of Representatives. And while it was Meta’s decision whether to remove content, he continues, “the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.
During the pandemic, Facebook officials drew ire from critics of lockdowns, vaccines and masking mandates because it removed certain posts, saying they contained misinformation related to the virus or otherwise went against its policies. In all, Facebook took down more than 20 million pieces of content in just over a year.
There’s a growing global debate over how far social media companies should go in policing the comments, images and other content posted by their users. Some platforms believe they should be hands off when it comes to telling users what they can and can’t say online, while some governments say that an overly laissez-faire stance can beget criminal behaviour.
On the eve of the US presidential election, pitting vice president Kamala Harris against former president Donald Trump, Mr Zuckerberg is also taking pains to appear non-partisan. “My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another – or to even appear to be playing a role,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote in the letter, the contents of which were posted to the Facebook page of the House Judiciary Committee and confirmed by Meta.
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