Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made weighty promises to Congress on Monday ahead of the 2024 election, saying he planned to fight any pressure from the White House to censor content on his social media platform and that he would not donate his controversial “Zuckerbucks” in this year’s election.
Zuckerberg said in his most explicit criticisms yet of the Biden White House that senior officials “repeatedly pressured” the tech billionaire’s company to suppress content related to COVID-19 on its Facebook platform 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,” Zuckerberg wrote, according to a letter to the House Judiciary Committee.
He said he believed the pressure from the White House, which came to light through a sweeping lawsuit brought by two Republican attorneys general in 2022, was “wrong,” that he regretted not being more vocal about it, that he made misinformed content moderation choices, and that his company would “push back” on any future pressure.
“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,” Zuckerberg wrote.
The Facebook founder also addressed his and his wife’s “Zuckerbucks” spending in the 2020 presidential election, which involved the Zuckerberg Chan Initiative funneling more than $400 million into local election offices.
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Critics at the time claimed the massive private donations from Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, improperly influenced the election after the funds were used in major battleground states that saw close races.
“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another—or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Read the full letter below:
This story is developing.
