On a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, detailed tensions between his company and the Biden administration over requests to remove content. According to Zuckerberg, administration representatives would call up Facebook’s team and give them an earful.
He remembered, “And basically these guys from the Biden administration would call up our team, and, um, scream at them and curse.” He insisted that, finally, Facebook resisted all those pressures, informing readers, “It just got to this point where we were like, ‘No, we’re not gonna take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous.’
This isn’t the first time Zuckerberg has spoken out about pressure from the administration. Last year, he wrote to Rep. Jim Jordan that the White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to take down content about COVID-19, including humor and satire.
Zuckerberg admitted that, in some cases, Facebook did what it was told but suggested it won’t in the future. “We made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” he said.
The White House fired back that, amid a deadly pandemic, the administration urged responsible actions to protect public health, adding that as long as tech companies purport to make independent choices about what information they host, they should consider the implications for the American public.
Zuckerberg cited a specific incident involving a meme featuring Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV screen promoting a class action lawsuit for COVID-19 vaccine recipients. He recalled, “They’re like, ‘No, you have to take that down,'” but Facebook stood firm, stating, “We’re not gonna take down humor and satire. We’re not gonna take down things that are true.
That controversy was part of a larger lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court in 2023, wherein plaintiffs sought an injunction against government officials interacting with social media companies. The Supreme Court threw out the lawsuit in a 6-3 ruling.
Zuckerberg’s remarks come as Meta announces changes to its content moderation policies, including eliminating its fact-checking program for a community-moderated process. It will also ease rules on political content across both Facebook and Instagram.
It is noteworthy to recall that Zuckerberg was one of the tech executives that donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.
