The Biden-Harris administration has responded to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s admission Monday that Facebook was pressured by the federal government to censor content.
MRCTV’s Brittany Hughes reported Tuesday that Zuckerberg made the revelation in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio):
“Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted Monday that his social media company wrongly caved to government demands to ‘censor’ COVID posts, saying his team was ‘frustrated’ by demands by the Biden administration to crack down on so-called ‘disinformation,’ but went along with it anyway at the point of a government gun.”
….
“Zuckerberg also added that Meta never should have censored the New York Post’s now-infamous Hunter Biden laptop story back in 2020, which pointed to evidence on Biden’s laptop that he and his father may have been abusing then-Vice President Joe Biden’s power to influence their family’s business dealings overseas.”
Zuckerberg said that Facebook censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, published by The New York Post in the days before the 2020 election, because it had been warned by the FBI about "a potential Russian disinformation operation" regarding the Biden family and Burisma.
In response to Zuckerberg’s letter, the Biden-Harris administration provided a statement to Fox News – that does not deny Zuckerberg’s charges.
However, the White House statement does say that social media platforms should base their censorship decisions on “the effects their actions have on the American people”:
"When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety. Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present."
Since Facebook (now X.com) is a platform for speech, not a publisher, censorship based on the potential effects of content is dubious, given Americans' First Amendment rights.