An emotional 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 emotional 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.

Blog Article

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that Meta was pressured by the Biden administration in the year 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, such as satirical and humorous posts.

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

In his letter to the House 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 vocal. He further stated that with the “benefit of hindsight and new information,” there were decisions made in that year that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“As I mentioned to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again, ” he wrote.

President Biden stated in July of 2021 that social media platforms are “causing harm” with misinformation about the pandemic.

Though Biden later revised these remarks, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated at the time that misinformation posted on social media was a “serious threat to public health.”

A spokesperson from the White House replied to Zuckerberg’s communication, saying the administration at the time was encouraging “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 their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the White House representative.

Zuckerberg also mentioned in the communication that the FBI alerted his company about potential Russian disinformation regarding Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian firm Burisma affecting the 2020 election.

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 story.

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 no longer demote content in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.

In the letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg stated he will avoid repeating the actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support “electoral infrastructure.”

“The idea here was to ensure local election authorities across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” stated the Meta CEO.

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

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

The Meta chief has long been under scrutiny from congressional Republicans, who have accused Facebook and other major tech platforms of being prejudiced against conservatives. While Zuckerberg has stressed that Meta impartially enforces its rules, the narrative has become entrenched in conservative circles. Republican lawmakers have specifically examined Facebook’s decision to limit the circulation of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden.

In Congressional testimony in recent years, Zuckerberg has attempted to bridge the divide between his social media giant and regulators to little effect.

In a 2020 Senate session, Zuckerberg admitted that many of Facebook’s employees are liberal. But he held that the company ensures political bias does not influence its decisions.

In addition, he said Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are outsourced, 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 claimants in a case accusing the federal government of suppressing conservative content on social media had no legal standing.

Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will experience harm that is traceable to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “since no plaintiff met this burden, none has standing to request a preliminary injunction.”
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
32 |
33 |
34 |
36 |

1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
32 |
33 |
34 |
35 |
36 |
37 |
38 |
39 |
40 |
41 |
42 |
43 |
44 |
45 |
46 |
47 |
48 |
49 |
50 |
51 |
52 |
53 |
54 |
55 |
56 |
57 |
58 |
59 |
60 |
61 |
62 |
63 |
64 |
65 |
66 |
67 |
68 |
69 |
70 |
71 |
72 |
73 |
74 |
75 |
76 |
77 |
78 |
79 |
80 |
81 |
82 |
83 |
84 |
85 |
86 |
87 |
88 |
89 |
90 |
91 |
92 |
93 |
94 |
95 |
96 |
97 |
98 |
99 |
100 |
101 |
102 |
103 |
104 |
105 |
106 |
107 |
108 |
109 |
110 |
111 |
112 |
113 |
114 |
115 |
116 |
117 |
118 |
119 |
120 |
121 |
122 |
123 |
124 |
125 |
126 |
127 |
128 |
129 |
130 |
131 |
132 |
133 |
134 |
135 |
136 |
137 |
138 |
139 |
140 |
141 |
142 |
143 |
144 |
145 |
146 |
147 |
148 |
149 |
150 |
151 |
152 |
153 |
154 |
155 |
156 |
157 |
158 |
159 |
160 |
161 |
162 |
163 |
164 |
165 |
166 |
167 |
168 |
169 |
170 |
171 |
172 |
173 |
174 |
175 |
176 |
177 |
178 |
179 |
180 |
181 |
182 |
183 |
184 |
185 |
186 |
187 |
188 |
189 |
190 |
191 |
192 |
193 |
194 |
195 |
196 |
197 |
198 |
199 |
200 |
201 |
202 |
203 |
204 |
205 |
206 |
207 |
208 |
209 |
210 |
211 |
212 |
213 |
214 |
215 |
216 |
217 |
218 |
219 |