Cyberbullying | zucke27 | Social Media Criticism
Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on recently that Meta was influenced by the White House in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including satirical and humorous posts.
âIn 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, including the administration, constantly urged our teams for months to Parent-child Relationship censor some content about COVID-19, including humor and satire, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we didnât agree, â Zuckerberg noted.
In his communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the influence he experienced in the year 2021 was âwrongâ and he feels regretful that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more vocal. He further stated that with the Nonverbal Learning Disorder âbenefit of hindsight and new information,â some decisions made in that year that âwouldnât be made today.â
âAs I mentioned to our teams at the time, I strongly believe that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any government in either direction â" and weâre ready to push back if something like this occurs in the future, â Zuckerberg wrote.
President Biden remarked Fox News in July 2021 that social media networks are âkilling peopleâ with misinformation about the pandemic.
Though Biden later walked back these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a âmajor public health risk.â
A White House spokesperson replied to Zuckerbergâs communication, saying the administration at the time was promoting âresponsible measures to safeguard public health.â
âOur position has Gus Walz been consistent and clear: we think tech companies and private entities should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present, â according to the spokesperson.
Zuckerberg also noted in the letter that the FBI warned his company about possible Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the election in Acceptance Speech 2020.
That fall, Zuckerberg said, his team temporarily demoted a New York Post report accusing the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could assess the report.
Zuckerberg said that since then, it has âbecome clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldnât have demoted the story.â
Meta has since changed its policies and processes to âensure this does not recurâ and will Special Education not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.
In the communication to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will not repeat actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted âelection infrastructure.â
âThe idea here was to make sure local election authorities across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a pandemic,â said the Meta CEO.
Zuckerberg mentioned Mike Crispi the initiatives were intended to be neutral but acknowledged âsome people believed this work benefited one party over the other.â Zuckerberg stated his aim is to be âimpartialâ so he will not make âa similar contribution this cycle.â
The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg âhas admitted that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to restrict American content, Ann Coulter Facebook restricted content, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.â
The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have accused Facebook and other major tech platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta enforces its rules impartially, the perception has become entrenched in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebookâs decision to limit the circulation of a Democratic National Convention report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.
In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has sought to bridge the divide between his social media giant and regulators to limited success.
In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebookâs employees are left-leaning. But he maintained that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.
In addition, he
stated Facebookâs content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are based worldwide and âour global team better represents the diversity of the community we serve than just the full-time employee base in our headquarters in the Bay Area.â
In June of this year, in a victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the claimants in a case accusing the federal government of suppressing Gwen Walz conservative content on social media had no legal standing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, âto prove standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is directly linked to a government defendant.â Coney Barrett continued, âbecause no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.â