Zuckerberg Defies the Borg
As governments everywhere tighten their grip on the Internet, Meta's CEO blows a hole in years of official lies. How authorities brought this on themselves
On April 9th, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reminding him of a subpoena in search of communications between Meta, the FBI, and “alleged foreign influence or election integrity.” Jordan’s office subsequently released a “Facebook Files” series, revealing documents showing Meta executives worrying about “continued pressure… including from the White House” to remove content.
Zuckerberg yesterday sent a letter that in a country with a functioning news media would have major ramifications. Not in direct response to Jordan’s April query, it appears to have been sent at Zuckerberg’s own volition, and is filled with passages deeply embarrassing to authorities. The first is about pressure to “censor” — specifically “censor,” not “moderate” or “exercise oversight”:
In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a bit of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree… I believe the government was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it…
Another was about Meta’s blocking of Miranda Devine’s 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden after being warned by the FBI:
The FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election. That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply. It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have demoted the story.
Zuckerberg’s letter is a stiff poke in the eye to authorities, who brought this on themselves:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Racket News to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.