In 2021, senior administration officials "repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content," Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee.
- This included censoring "humor and satire," he added, noting that officials "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," Zuckerberg wrote.
- Meta wouldn't make the same decision today and would "push back" if presented with such a scenario again, he added.
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I guess better late than never. However, I doubt his sincerity on this and will require him to walk the walk for a long time before investing any trust.
Day late and a few billion in profits short, Mark Martian. You've permanently damaged your brand and you know it.
I can't wait for your little brainchild to go the way of MySpace.
We need to know exactly who these people were, and from which part of government they were receiving their paychecks.
Why would have a simple “no” not have been sufficient?
It is not clear to me whether Facebook bowed to the pressure and censored. Or if it resisted the pressure and didn't censor.
I'm going with censorship unless I see a clear statement from Facebook that they did not.
Another reason I've never used Facebook nor permitted anyone to us it on any of my devices.
Or WhatsApp.
Facebook terms of service give them w@aay to much access to non-fbi material on my devices.
John Henry
Here, the axiom of two wrongs comes to play. The government was wrong to pressure social media. Facebook was also wrong to cave to that pressure and wait 4 years to publicly acknowledge being pressured. I understand competition suggests censorship of sharing mistakes made, but if you believe the government did wrong and you fell for it; then the least you could have done is come forward about it a year ago when it became public knowledge with the Twitter files.
When you've lost Mark Zuckerburg..
Andy (the medicare guy) murthy the surgeon general fauci of course
I trust him about as far as I could spit a dead rat, but it's good to see another social media magnate deciding that maybe Free Speech is a better idea after all.
I'm sure the arrest the day before of Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, by the government of France for unspecified reasons, had absolutely nothing to do with Zuckerberg's newfound zeal for transparency.
Exactly- name names.
Only one element in the nearly two year long campaign of psy-ops and election rigging from the DNC/Intel cartel. The BLM Reign of Terror, the Russia collusion hoax, and the shutdowns were among the other Cloward/Piven election rigging schemes to drive Trump out of office. This time around, no pretenses. Outright assassination attempts.
Bullshit. Zuckerprick is a leftwing Democrat and loves to censor Trump, Republicans, and anything that is not approved by the ADL/DNC. He's just doing some CYA. Twitter under Dorsey had ex-FBI lawyer Baker dealing with the DHS/FBI/Whoever demands to censor content. They cooperated because Dorsey Twitter wanted to censor the same things the FBI/DHS/Biden did.
Musk doesn't. He publicized all the Biden Administration's censorship machinations, he fired Baker, and he's become the No. 2 enemy (behind Trump and ahead of Tucker) of the DNC and the ADL. Notice he's not been to Europe lately, that's because the leftist in UK and Europe have arrested the head of Telegram and would LOVE to arrest Elon Musk.
These are the same creeps that wouldn't lift a finger to arrest Netenyahu despite his being charged as a war criminal by the ICC.
The way the socials bowed to the Biden admin during COVID and the campaign drama really changed the way I see things in this country
I made the same connection- the arrest of Durov might have stiffened a spine for once.
The interesting thing to me, not a new insight by any means, is that he's openly resisting the current administration. I honestly think he goes where he thinks is the most advantageous, not driven by ethics, and that he's positioning himself for the next season. I could be wrong, but if he thought it was advantageous for him to continue censorship, he would, so he sees a big change ahead. And given the kind of information that Facebook and Google get about people, he has much better information than any polling company.
If Axios is reporting this it is being presented in the best possible light for democrats and entrenched government. The whole story is going to break and be far worse than what Axios has here. Democrats will respond that it's an old story.
Zuckerberg gives me the impression of the nerd who helps the head cheerleader with her homework and really really wants to believe he'll get to be one of the cool kids even though he realizes it's not happening.
Ahem, the Winklevii would like a word with you...
It's GOOD TO KNOW.. That this sort of statement would NEVER come from Google!
Everything Google does; is Wonderful, and Great!
and i'm not just saying that because otherwise Google wouldn't allow blogger to post my comment.. I'm saying that because Google is WONDERFUL! and Great!
One thing's for sure, Zuckerbucks was a quid pro quo deal that we haven't heard the story on, yet. $400 million 'freely' given to provide voting 'experts' to supervise certain districts with mysteriously-accessible modems, also to distribute countless 'Covid 19' ballot boxes for unsupervised stuffing, and who knows what else. Just like that, philanthropically spent in all the right precincts. What did he get for that?
He must think Trump is going to win.
They didn't just bow. They sucked the government off before grabbing the vaseline, bending over, and asking if it was ok to call the government 'daddy' while being raped.
They were only to happy. All of them were. They didn't even make any money off it either. They performed free-of-charge.
Streetwalkers have more dignity.
Now he tells us?
Barry Dauphin is correct. Zuck thinks Trump will win.
Yep. I hope a Trump presidency and congress anti-trust them into oblivion.
Hopefully because he thinks the gap will be too big to rig, as they say.
The Axios statement doesn't even characterize Zuck's statements correctly. It is Axios, not Meta, that characterizes the suppressed information as "misinformation."
Read the letter here: https://x.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1828201780544504064
Axios is a misinformation supply company.
In 2021 he felt pressured to censor content.
In 2020 he not only did censored content on Facebook of his own accord, he spent his own money to maximize turnout for Democrats to prevent Trump from winning.
He needs to apologize for the "before," and not just the "after."
I object. "Inaccurate" is leading with duplicitous intent.
“we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers.”
In the U.S.? That’s a significant caveat. In what other countries does Facebook continue to temporarily demote things? For what other reasons does Facebook continue to temporarily demote things in the U.S.?
I wonder how many of those complaining about Facebook here have Facebook accounts?
Why?
Same question for those bitching about Google.
John Henry
I wonder how many of those complaining about Facebook here have Facebook accounts?
Why?
Same question for those bitching about Google.
John Henry
The Democrats will do anything to "save democracy" - including gutting constitutional republican democracy like a fish and wearing its carcass as a skinsuit.
As Insta said, conspiracy theory is just the facts three weeks ahead of the news cycle.
FB helped to discredit life saving drugs during covid. The helped to ramp up the hysteria and insanity. They fully supported the overturning of an election, by spending millions on lies, half truths, and propaganda.
He has admitted nothing really. and could care less for any 'consequences'. He has bought enough congressmen and women to avoid any legal problems.
I would love to see the little bitch in handcuffs, but we all know the legal system in America is a joke.
The sad part is that about 50% of Americans don't care about this and what it says about our government.
Zuck The Android's comments are all around the government-collusive actions by Facebook related to covid. I haven't read all of what he said but I don't think he's fessed up at all to suppressing/manipulating information related to the 2020 election.
I guess the DNC has yet to put out talking points in this issue. There have been no comments from Richie, Inga, mutaman or gadfly.
This is all fine as to the past, but the question is, what is Facebook censoring now?
Well, you can't blame Biden. He wasn't there.
Axios' take, prefacing Zuckerberg's sort of apology:
"Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday that the Biden administration was "wrong" to pressure the company to censor certain inaccurate content during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why it matters: Social media networks played a significant role in helping spread misinformation and vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic, with potentially lethal consequences for some Americans.
The big picture: In 2021, senior administration officials "repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content," Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee."
certain inaccurate content, meaning anything that contradicted claims about the efficacy of mRNA vaccines.
misinformation and vaccine hesitancy, meaning claims counter to Biden's statement "[T]he only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that’s — they’re killing people..."
potentially lethal consequences, based on the CDC's claim that C-19-related deaths were much higher among the unvaccinated.
Never mind that the books were cooked by the CDC, excess deaths were caused by moving recovering C-19 patients to nursing homes, and the immediate bar by state pharmacy boards for use of HCQ and ivermectin because their effectiveness was "unproven." It's easy to say something's unproven if you don't allow clinical trials.
"
Ride space mountain
My Space still exists at www.myspace.com
I apparently still have an account though I've not logged in since maybe the 90s
I figured out the password reset email. Now I just have to figure out how to access a 25 year oldailbox
John Henry
The campaign is leaving no inconvenient truths unaddressed…except for the stealing the election part…and the answers aren’t so much answers as flowery language that doesn’t mean anything…
Zuck’s wake boat really churns up the lake. Vulgar…
Thirty years ago I would have agreed with you. But I think this is what you might expect from the endgame of rampant elitism when people who think they are part of the elite find out they really aren't.
They are still doing it. Yesterday I posted on FaceBook a photo of a mail truck in a cemetery on which someone (I think I got from the PowerLine blog "Week in Pictures" feature) had added the text, "I guess they have started delivering the ballots." Immediately, FB notified me that that image had previously been "fact-checked" by POlitico and it contained "information that could mislead."
It's SATIRE! It's meant to be funny not "news." Yet because I have a wide range of friends and family on FB I see posts every day that call Trump an "existential threat" to Democracy, or the climate, or trans people. Has that been investigated by Politico? I've started reporting that kind of thing for being "misleading" and it is never taken down. Usually I get no response but when I get one it is "no action was taken after review." Okay then.
Zuck took a baby step towards supporting the First Amendment. He certainly could do a lot more.
But but but ...Putin and Marjorie Taylor Green! and Horse Paste.
PLUS creepy in-unison-Media forced Jab talking points.
1. Zuck caught six kinds of living hell when he disclosed that Facebook SOLD data to a conservative group. He got nothing but praise for allowing the Obama campaign free access to all data on Facebook, for FREE.
2. Zuck caught some mild criticism when the public learned how much Facebook was working hand in hand with the Biden administration to censor users since the 2020 campaign.
3. Zuck knows what else Facebook has done to push a political agenda, and to be pushed around by politicians.
4. Zuck is avoiding further company damage by admitting to known, previous wrongdoing, while admitting nothing more than what has been openly known for years, so when new info becomes public it will be old news of company behavior that he's already acknowledged.
This is simply damage control and is meaningless. What is he hiding now?
The sad part is that about 50% of Americans don't care about this and what it says about our government.
The really sad part is that about a third of Americans WANT it that way.
I have quislings, I mean questions.
Like...Is Zukabug a quisling or a full grown quis?
It will be variations of "Trump was president in 2020" and "Trump appointed the heads of those agencies." Completely ignoring the reality that GS employees (heavily protected) were behind the first (Hunter's laptop), and seriously complicit in the second (covid censorship).
"oops, my bad."
Of course, nothing will change.
If Zuckerberg is serious about his claims, he should file a 1st Amendment lawsuit, and recruit co-claimants for class action.
Otherwise this sounds like angling for market share.
The vast majority of it was, at best, uninformed nonsense, and at worst, intentional disinformation designed specifically to kill people in the West. You should absolutely be free to say whatever you want, as b@tsh*t crazy as you like. But for it to be promoted by algorithms is an editorial decision. Not that different from publishing. If the social platforms disseminate disinformation they should be held accountable and Section 230 protections should be removed.
Like everyone else: WHO in the Biden Administration was doing this?
Transparency would help: every time you get a message from the government asking you to censor someone, post it on line. Every time you get a phone call soliciting censorship, print a fair summary.
This doesn’t mean you must refuse every such request, just disclose it.
I have a facebook account for pictures of family. I don't use Google.
If Zuck thinks it was wrong, he should publish every bit of the communications between META and government officials.
Reveal to us the degree of Fascism of the government agents!
Go read Judge Doughty's decisions.
Go watch Tucker Carlson's interview of RFK Jr.
Ok, you censored it. One of the answers to that is MORE speech. Please now amplify the Biden laptop story as well as help to promote awareness of it, how was it censored, how intelligence groups sought to call it Russian disinformation, and what truth has come out since then.
If you are going to reveal such information, share exactly WHAT was forced into silence (i.e. censored)
As someone who had a post censored by Facebook, I guess my question is, where is the line between permissible and impermissible government pressure? If Facebook would not have censored my post but for government pressure, isn’t that impermissible?
I personally had FB content censored, called out by FB system. Jab injured FB groups were simply nuked.
It's helpful for groups dedicated to certain interests. As a freelancer, I've gotten gigs and made purchases not available elsewhere. That's when they're acting as a platform, not publisher.
He is talking about the past. As people wake up from the Covid- lies and bullshit.
I believe he said a while back they were responding to err..guidance from a 3 letter agency re Hunter laptop.
If Zuck were genuinely serious, he would follow his apology with an act of sepukku. That's what it would take to atone for all the evil that he helped to bring about.
Hey, a fella can dream, can't he?
But that's a question that can be reduced to the simplest answer, being the best answer : No government pressure is permissible.
Nowadays, the gap between "inaccurate content" and "common knowledge" is about three weeks.
Certainly seems like something that a good journalist would ask Harris during that elusive interview. Was she the one who spearheaded this? Does she approve of it now?
One of the reasons that I stopped using Facebook is that my FBFs ("Facebook friends") , who mostly have Leftwing politics, posted Lefty stuff that I felt compelled to correct. That is NOT a good way to keep friendships with absent friends. So I stopped. It turned out to be easier to stop reading Facebook than to stop responding to (what I regarded as) stupid comments.
I think that sites like Facebook are useful to keep us in touch with our far-flung families and friends, but they become counterproductive when they become instruments of propaganda, for right, left, or other.
Is there a market for (say) "Friendly Facebook"?
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