Tag: facebook

Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes for Biden Administration Censorship, Sending Liberal Elites Into Denial

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter last week to the House Judiciary Committee saying he regrets not being more outspoken about “government pressure” from the Biden administration to “censor” COVID-19 content, causing liberal pundits and media outlets who have denied this censorship to panic and deny what Zuckerberg wrote. The Meta CEO also admitted that his company demoted a story critical of Biden’s son—the Hunter Biden laptop scandal—right before the 2020 election.

In 2021, senior officials in 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 …. I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it …. and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.

Journalist Kara Swisher began lying about the matter in a CNN interview, alleging that the Supreme Court had found there had been no censorship and that the Biden administration had not pressured Meta. Both claims are false.

In the recent Supreme Court ruling, judges skipped over claims of whether the Biden administration had actually censored Americans, arguing that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue the White House. Swisher could have learned this by reading an article on the decision in the New York Times, the very publication where she was a contributor.

As for the Biden administration pressure to censor—something that Swisher denies—the evidence of this was made clear from Meta internal communications released by the House Judiciary Committee last May.

Zuckerberg texted three Meta officials—Sheryl Sandberg, Nick Clegg, and Joel Kaplan—on July 16, 2021, “Can we include that the [White House] put pressure on us to censor the lab leak theory?”

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Facebook Blocks Secret Recording of DOJ Official Saying Trump Case is “Nonsense”

Facebook is once again at the center of a censorship storm after being accused of blocking the circulation of a video exposing harsh criticisms by a official regarding the prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

The video, also published on Rumble features undercover footage showing Nicholas Biase, the chief spokesman for the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office, which brought cases against President Trump, slamming Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Trump case as a “perversion of justice.”

“Honestly, I think the case is nonsense,” Biase says in the video.

Users who went to share the video on Facebook were hit with the following message: “We can’t review this website because the content doesn’t meet our Community Standards. If you think this is a mistake, please let us know.”

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Why Did Zuckerberg Choose Now To Confess?

Consider Mark Zuckerberg’s revelation and its implications for our understanding of the last four years, and what it means for the future.

On many subjects important to public life today, vast numbers of people know the truth, and yet the official channels of information sharing are reluctant to admit it. The Fed admits no fault in inflation and neither do most members of Congress. The food companies don’t admit the harm of the mainstream American diet. The pharmaceutical companies are loath to admit any injury. Media companies deny any bias. So on it goes. 

And yet everyone else does know, already and more and more so.

This is why the admission of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was so startling. It’s not what he admitted. We already knew what he revealed. What’s new is that he admitted it. We are simply used to living in a world swimming in lies. It rattles us when a major figure tells us what is true or even partially or slightly true. We almost cannot believe it, and we wonder what the motivation might be. 

In his letter to Congressional investigators, he flat-out said what everyone else has been saying for years now. 

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….I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.

A few clarifications. The censorship began much earlier than that, from March 2020 at the very least if not earlier. We all experienced it, almost immediately following lockdowns. 

After a few weeks, using that platform to get the word out proved impossible. Facebook once made a mistake and let my piece on Woodstock and the 1969 flu go through but they would never make that mistake again. For the most part, every single opponent of the terrible policies was deplatformed at all levels. 

The implications are far more significant than the bloodless letter of Zuckerberg suggests. People consistently underestimate the power that Facebook has over the public mind. This was especially true in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. 

The difference in having an article unthrottled much less amplified by Facebook in these years was in the millionfold. When my article went through, I experienced a level of traffic that I had never seen in my career. It was mind-boggling. When the article was shut down some two weeks later – after focused troll accounts alerted Facebook that the algorithms had made a mistake – traffic fell to the usual trickle. 

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Zuckerberg says Biden officials ‘pressured’ Meta to ‘censor’ content: What to know

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee saying he regrets not being more outspoken about “government pressure” from the Biden administration to “censor” content on its platforms.

“Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction,” he wrote in the letter.

Here’s what to know about the claims.

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Biden-Harris Administration Defends Big Tech Censorship Pressure Following Zuckerberg’s Admission

The Biden-Harris White House looks determined to justify and normalize the practice of the government colluding with private companies, in this instance Big Tech, to censor speech.

After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, admitting that his company came under pressure from the current administration to conduct censorship and that he “believes” that was wrong – the White House doubled down on the controversial, and quite possibly, unconstitutional, policy.

In his letter, Zuckerberg chose to focus on Meta censoring content related to COVID-19, and in response, a White House spokesman revealed the government does not share Zuckerberg’s stance that the policy of pressure was wrong.

“Encouragement” is how that’s phrased. “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” stated the White House spokesman to media requests.

He further justified the actions described by Zuckerberg as needed because the White House believes private companies, including those from the tech industry, “should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people.”

And with the stage set in this way – the spokesman concluded that these companies are then free to make “independent choices about the information they present.”

But Zuckerberg’s letter to the Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan does a pretty good job of explaining how these “independent choices” get made. Senior figures from the Biden administration, Zuckerberg stated, in 2021 “repeatedly pressured our (Facebook, Instagram) teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire.”

The decision on content removal, and introduction of new rules into platform policies to facilitate censorship, Zuckerberg concedes, was “ultimately ours” –  but made under pressure.

If Meta tried to defy these “suggestions” – the administration showed “a lot of frustration.”

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Mark Zuckerberg Confirms Biden Administration Pressured Facebook on Censorship, Admits to Throttling Hunter Biden Story

In a revealing letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has addressed significant controversies surrounding the platform’s content censorship practices, especially concerning actions taken during the 2020 presidential election cycle and the COVID-19 pandemic.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Zuckerberg confirmed that senior officials from the Biden Administration exerted “pressure” on Facebook to censor specific content related to COVID-19, criticizing the administration’s approach. Despite the external pressures, Zuckerberg emphasized that the final decisions on content moderation lay with Facebook, admitting regret over some of the decisions made under this pressure.

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Mark Zuckerberg ‘Regrets’ Censorship of COVID Info & Hunter Biden Laptop Story

Mark Zuckerberg sensationally admitted that the Biden White House pressured Facebook to censor content about COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop story and that he now regrets it.

In a letter to the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said the social media giant was “repeatedly pressured” by the government to blacklist information after Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.

“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, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” wrote the Facebook founder.

Such information included claims that the virus emerged from a Chinese lab, something which subsequently became one of the most likely scenarios, as well as content that questioned the efficacy and safety of the COVID jab.

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Zuckerberg’s Meta Censors US Paralympian in Bid to ‘Foster a Safe Community’

When will Meta pull the plug on someone representing the United States at the Paralympic Games in Paris, which start later this month?

When their sport uses a gun, of course.

According to a Wall Street Journal report late last month, McKenna Geer, a member of the U.S. team, will be competing in the air rifle event. However, last month, she said she was censored for posting about shooting-related things. Which, as you know, people who shoot for sport are known to do.

Geer, 28, has a condition known as amyoplasia arthrogryposis, which affects the muscles. You’d think that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta — which runs Facebook and Instagram among its social media holdings — would read the room in terms of shadow-banning her. You’d be wrong.

“Earlier this month, Ms. Geer shared a photo on Instagram of the air rifle she used to qualify for the Paralympic Games,” the Journal reported on July 24.

“The company flagged the photo as out of line with its guidelines and informed her that nonfollowers wouldn’t be able to view her account or content in Instagram’s search, explore suggested users or similar features.”

The company’s explanation?

“Our Recommendations Guidelines help to promote content that fosters a safe community on Instagram,” it said.

Geer, who apparently knew this was a possibility, took to Instagram on July 17 to write about Meta’s decision.

“I have always feared the day the media would censor my sport and speech just because I use firearms,” she wrote. “That day has finally come.”

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Judges Back Meta in Vaccine “Misinformation” Battle, Free Speech Advocates Vow to Fight On

The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals ruled this week in favor of Meta, Facebook’s parent company. The case was brought forward by the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) over allegations that the social media giant violated free speech rights.

The lawsuit, initiated in August 2020 and later updated in December, claimed that Facebook, along with its CEO Mark Zuckerberg and two fact-checking entities, Science Feedback, and the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact site, was complicit in an unconstitutional act of privately exercising governmental censorship. CHD alleges that Facebook, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other federal institutions, is censoring content and discussions that the government is barred from suppressing under the First Amendment.

We obtained a copy of the opinion for you here.

The plaintiff specifically accused these sides of working in tandem to unfairly stifle valid attempts to discuss vaccine safety on Facebook, often through indirect yet sensorial measures like the use of warning labels. According to CHD, this type of arrangement between public entities and private corporations represents a breach of the First Amendment due to its perceived status as “state action.”

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‘Display of Cowardice’- Meta Reinstates Malaysian PM’s Posts on Haniyeh’s Assassination

Meta has apologized for removing posts by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim regarding the assassination of Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh.

The social media posts have been reinstated with the note: “This post goes against our Community Guidelines but has been left on Instagram for public awareness.”

Ibrahim’s posts included a video of him on a phone call with Hamas official, Dr Bassim Naim, expressing his condolences on Haniyeh’s killing in the Iranian capital last week.

In the caption, the premier called his death “a murder of the most heinous kind, plainly designed to derail ongoing talks aimed at ending the carnage in Gaza that has claimed over 40,000 lives.”

Malaysian government officials had reportedly met with Meta representatives on Monday to seek an explanation.

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