As reported by The Guardian, in a letter to GOP witch hunter Jim Jordan:
The Meta boss, Mark Zuckerberg, has said he regrets bowing to what he claims was pressure from the US government to censor posts about Covid on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic.
What sort of nefarious pressure was the Biden administration trying to impose?
During the pandemic, Facebook added misinformation alerts to users when they commented on or liked posts that were judged to contain false information about Covid.
The company also deleted posts criticising Covid vaccines, and suggestions the virus was developed in a Chinese laboratory.
So, the Biden White House was trying to stop the dissemination of misinformation about a pandemic that killed over a million people in this country. And what sort of pressure was the White House using?
The Washington Post:
But Zuckerberg also said Meta’s content moderation actions were its own and not the result of government compulsion — a characterization consistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show a direct connection between government pressure and the removal of their posts.
So, no actual government censorship, just pressure that Zuckerberg's companies show some responsibility in not allowing themselves to be used to disseminate the false information that was getting more people killed.
Zuckerberg says they'll now let stories circulate until their fact-checkers confirm whether or not they're legit. No explanation on how long such stories will be allowed to circulate, or what standards will be used to determine what misinformation should be removed from circulation.
In June, the Supreme Court rejected a bid led by Republican state attorneys general to restrict contacts between the White House and tech companies; and in July, it threw out lower-court decisions that would have limited social networks’ right to moderate users’ posts. So, from a legal standpoint, the White House did nothing wrong, as it was successfully taming the pandemic it inherited after Trump's disastrous response, and Zuckerberg’s companies did nothing wrong in trying to limit the spread of misinformation. But Zuckerberg apparently doesn't care about the public good of not allowing people to spread misinformation that's killing people, and he apparently doesn't care that no laws were violated.
Zuckerberg’s letter marks the first time Meta has weighed in publicly on the lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general, which alleges that the Biden administration’s pressure on it and other tech giants to crack down on covid-19 misinformation amounted to illegal censorship. The Meta chief’s use of the word “censor” mirrors that of Jordan and other Republicans, as does his criticism of the Biden administration.
Even going so far as to parrot right wing talking points. Why? And why now? Why such obeisance to the relentlessly toxic Jordan?
The announcement that Meta will no longer demote stories flagged as potential violations of its misinformation policies could mean that falsehoods will circulate more freely on its networks before and after a contentious 2024 presidential election.
Yes. Yes, it could.
Since suspending Donald Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Meta and other major tech firms have reinstated him and lifted restrictions on his accounts.
Because some billionaires don’t care about the fate of millions of people during a pandemic. Or the survival of democracy.
