The heartfelt moment between Tim Walz and his 17-year-old son, Gus, has triggered a flood of praise and approval, but it has at the same time led to nasty bullying attacks online.

The heartfelt moment between Tim Walz and his 17-year-old son, Gus, has triggered a flood of praise and approval, but it has at the same time led to nasty bullying attacks online.

Blog Article

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a communication to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his company was influenced by the White House in 2021 to restrict certain COVID-19 content, such as satirical and humorous posts.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden White House, including the administration, constantly urged our teams for months to censor some content about COVID-19, such as humor and satire, and showed significant frustration with our teams when we did not comply, ” Zuckerberg said.

In his letter to the Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the influence he felt in the year 2021 was “inappropriate” and he regrets that Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, was not more vocal. He further stated that with the “hindsight and new information,” some decisions made in 2021 that “wouldn’t be made today.”

“As I mentioned to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not lower our content standards due to pressure from any government from either side – and we’re prepared to resist if something like this occurs in the future, ” Zuckerberg wrote.

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

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

A White House spokesperson responded to Zuckerberg’s letter, 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 consider the effects their actions have on the American people, while making their own decisions about the content they share, ” according to the spokesperson.

Zuckerberg also noted in the communication 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 accusing the Biden family of corruption while their fact-checkers could review the report.

Zuckerberg said that since then, it has “been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, 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 letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said he will not repeat actions he took in the year 2020 when he helped support “electoral infrastructure.”

“The goal here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the necessary resources to help people vote safely during a pandemic,” stated the Meta CEO.

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

The GOP representatives on the House Judiciary Committee shared the letter on X and claimed Zuckerberg “has admitted that the Biden-Harris administration influenced Facebook to censor Americans, Facebook censored Americans, and Facebook limited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

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

In testimony before Congress in the past years, Zuckerberg has attempted to bridge the divide between his social media company and regulators to little effect.

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

In addition, he said Facebook’s content moderators, many of whom are contractors, are based worldwide 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 victory for the administration, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the plaintiffs in a case alleging the federal government of censoring conservative voices on social media had no standing.

In the majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “to prove standing, the plaintiffs must show a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is directly linked to a government defendant.” Coney Barrett continued, “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek 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 |