An heartfelt exchange between Tim Walz and his teenage son, Gus, has sparked a wave of admiration and support, but it has at the same time provoked ugly bullying attacks online.

An heartfelt exchange between Tim Walz and his teenage son, Gus, has sparked a wave of admiration and support, but it has at the same time provoked ugly bullying attacks online.

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Mark Zuckerberg disclosed in a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was urged by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to limit certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical and humorous posts.

“In the year 2021, senior members from the Biden Administration, such as the administration, repeatedly pressured our teams for an extended period to remove certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical content, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg said.

In his letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the pressure he experienced in 2021 was “inappropriate” and he regrets that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more outspoken. Zuckerberg added that with the “benefit of hindsight and new information,” some decisions made in that year that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“Like I told our teams back then, I strongly believe 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 occurs in the future, ” he wrote.

President Biden remarked in July of 2021 that social media platforms are “killing people” with misinformation surrounding the pandemic.

Though Biden later revised these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at the time that misinformation spread on social media was a “major public health risk.”

A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerberg’s communication, stating the administration at the time was encouraging “responsible actions to protect public health and safety.”

“Our position has been consistent and clear: we think tech companies and private entities should consider the effects their actions have on the public, while making their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the White House representative.

Zuckerberg also mentioned in the letter that the FBI warned his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma affecting the election in 2020.

That fall, Zuckerberg said, his team temporarily demoted reporting from the New York Post alleging Biden family corruption while their fact-checkers could review the report.

Zuckerberg said that since then, it has “become clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in hindsight, we should not have reduced its visibility.”

Meta has since updated its policies and procedures to “ensure this does not recur” and will not reduce the visibility of content in the US pending fact-checking.

In the communication to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will not repeat actions he took in the year 2020 when he assisted “election infrastructure.”

“The goal here was to ensure local election authorities across the country had the necessary resources to facilitate safe voting during a pandemic,” said the Meta CEO.

Zuckerberg mentioned the initiatives were intended to be neutral but said “some people believed this work benefited one party over the other.” Zuckerberg stated his aim is to be “impartial” so will not be “a similar contribution this cycle.”

The GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee posted the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg “just admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to restrict American content, Facebook restricted content, and Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

The Meta chief has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who have claimed Facebook and other large technology platforms of being biased against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has emphasized that Meta enforces its rules impartially, the narrative has gained a firm foothold in conservative communities. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebook’s decision to limit the circulation of a report by the New York Post about Hunter Biden.

In Congressional testimony in recent years, Zuckerberg has sought to close the gap between his social media giant and regulators to limited success.

In a 2020 Senate hearing, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebook’s employees are liberal. But he held that the company takes care not to allow political bias to seep into decisions.

In addition, he stated Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are globally located and “our 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.”

In June, in a win for the White House, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case alleging the federal government of censoring conservative voices on social media had no legal standing.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett stated, “to establish standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will experience harm that is directly linked to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.”
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