Meta says White House pressured it to censor posts

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg accused the Biden administration of pressuring the social media group to “censor” certain Covid-19 content during the pandemic and said he intended to be politically “neutral” this election cycle.

In a letter addressed to House judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan, Zuckerbergwrote that senior Biden officials had “repeatedly pressured” Meta’s team for months to censor some Covid-19 content, including humour and satire.

“I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” he wrote in the letter, which was posted on X by the committee on Monday. “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.”