Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he now believes US government pressure on his social media platforms to take down certain Covid-19 content in 2021 was "wrong," and would resist similar attempts in the future.
In a letter addressed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and released by Republicans on the committee on Monday, Zuckerberg addressed a number of controversies centred on content moderation on his platforms.
He also asserted that he did not plan on repeating funding efforts for US election infrastructure ahead of the country's presidential poll this year, donations that had drawn sharp criticism from Republicans and used to stoke conspiracy theories.
The letter was a submission to a committee led by the hard-charging Republican Jordan that over the past months has accused tech platforms of throttling conservative views and pushing a democratic agenda.
The submission comes just over two months out from a tightly contested US presidential election race, with the spotlight on widespread online misinformation about the candidates.
Regarding the pandemic, the Facebook founder said President Joe Biden's administration had in 2021 "repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire."
"I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it," Zuckerberg wrote.
"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."
The White House defended its actions during the pandemic, which killed more than a million people in the United States amid bitter political battles over vaccines and attempts to limit the spread of the virus.
"When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety," a White House spokesman said Tuesday.
"We believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have."
Zuckerberg also said he would not be repeating his Covid-era push to fund nonprofits working to support US electoral infrastructure due to such donations being seen by Republicans as being partisan.
"My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another - or to even appear to be playing a role," he wrote.
The letter to Congress also touched on controversy regarding Facebook's handling of a story regarding US President Joe Biden's son Hunter that was published by the New York Post in 2020.
Zuckerberg said the story, which purported to expose corrupt dealings by the Biden family, was "temporarily demoted" while Facebook fact-checkers probed the possibility of it being "a potential Russian disinformation operation."
The Meta CEO said the story was ultimately found not to be part of such an operation and that the platform has changed its policy such that posts in the United States are no longer demoted while fact checkers investigate them.
AFP