Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is facing fresh GOP scrutiny after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that senior Biden administration officials “repeatedly pressured” Facebook during the pandemic to censor content.
Mayorkas previously denied to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) in congressional testimony that his agency was involved in telling social media companies to remove information they deemed false about COVID-19.
In the wake of the censorship allegations from Zuckerberg, Hawley accused Mayorkas of perjuring himself and called on him to be fired in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“Zuckerberg finally admitted what everybody already knew: The Biden-Harris Administration coerced Big Tech to do its dirty work, censoring free speech about COVID and the 2020 election,” Hawley said on Thursday. “We knew Mayorkas was behind this — even if he denied it to Congress. Add perjury to the list of reasons he should be fired.”
Mayorkas denied to the Senate Homeland Security Committee in November 2022 that the Department of Homeland Security pressured social media companies to censor pandemic-related content.
“It is unequivocally false, senator,” Mayorkas said in a series of questions from Hawley.
“You are not pressuring the Big Tech companies to take down accounts?” Hawley said. “You are not meeting with them to ask them to censor on your behalf?”
Mayorkas responded, “That is correct. We are not.”
DHS was under fire at the time over a since-scrapped plan to set up a “Disinformation Governance Board” that Republicans said would lead to the unconstitutional infringement of free speech. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, is housed under DHS and has faced allegations of “colluding” with Big Tech to censor conservatives.
DHS declined to comment on the claims of perjury and censorship and directed the Washington Examiner to the White House. In a statement, the White House said it “encouraged responsible actions” during a health emergency but supports tech companies “making independent choices.”
“When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” a spokesperson said. “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.”
Zuckerberg told the House Judiciary Committee this week in a letter stemming from a congressional investigation into content moderation that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, was told by government officials to shield specific content during the pandemic.
“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.
He described the pressure as “wrong,” expressed regret for their content moderation choices, and said that Meta will “push back” and be more vocal on future government attempts to influence content.
“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.
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House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) also criticized the past denials from Mayorkas.
“This is the agency that was trying to set up the Disinformation Governance Board, as if some bureaucrats can tell Americans what they can say and what they can’t say under the First Amendment,” Jordan said on Fox News. “This is crazy. So of course he’s wrong.”
David Sivak contributed to this report.
