Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to Congress calling out the Biden-Harris administration’s censorship regime shows that White House officials pushed to control the narrative about COVID-19 and political speech across major social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon.
Social media executives at Facebook and other platforms fought the censorship demands and, by early 2021, expressed frustration and anger about the Biden administration’s “pressure” to block and demote content related to COVID-19 vaccines and the origins of the coronavirus.
Mr. Zuckerberg’s Monday letter to the House Judiciary Committee further exposed the administration’s coercion strategy, including FBI efforts to persuade social media platforms to suppress the story about the politically damning contents of the discarded laptop computer once owned by President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
“What Zuckerberg is admitting to is just the tip of the iceberg of federal agency corruption,” Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, told The Washington Times.
Mr. Johnson said the FBI has been working to undermine a Senate investigation into Hunter Biden, and lawmakers believe the efforts to block their probe were directed by “someone in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.”
Mr. Zuckerberg’s letter details FBI efforts to squelch reporting on the laptop computer, which contained information about Hunter Biden’s debauchery and text messages connecting President Biden to his son’s lucrative foreign business deals.
Mr. Zuckerberg said the FBI warned the company about a “Russian disinformation operation” related to the Biden family and Hunter Biden’s lucrative position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company.
Because of the FBI warnings, he said, Facebook moved to “temporarily demote” the New York Post article about the laptop’s contents, which the Post published days before the 2020 presidential election.
FBI officials knew the laptop was authentic and was not Russian disinformation but declined to inform Facebook.
“We shouldn’t have demoted the story,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. He announced that Facebook changed its policies “to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Biden officials aggressively berated social media platforms over COVID-19 content, Mr. Zuckerberg said in the bombshell letter.
Writing to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, Mr. Zuckerberg accused Biden officials of relentlessly pressuring Facebook “for months” to remove virus-related material, including humor and satire.
When Facebook initially pushed back, the administration “expressed frustration” that the social media platform refused to cooperate, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” he said. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
Emails made public by the Judiciary Committee show Facebook officials grew increasingly frustrated with White House demands and accusations, one made by Mr. Biden, that the platform was responsible for COVID-19 deaths.
On July 16, 2021, Mr. Biden declared that social media platforms, including Facebook, were “killing people” by allowing “outrageous misinformation” about the virus and vaccines on their platforms.
Facebook executives were furious.
“The behavior of the White House over the last 24 hours has been highly cynical and dishonest,” Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg said in an email sent the same day.
The White House censorship demands escalated, including pressure to remove content promoting the now widely believed theory that the COVID-19 vaccine leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
In the July 16 email exchange with Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Clegg, Meta Platforms CEO Sheryl Sandberg said “the best narrative” for the company was that Biden administration officials “are scapegoating us to cover their own missed vaccination rates and a virus they can’t get control of through public policy.”
Facebook wasn’t the only target of White House officials seeking to control pandemic messaging with intimidation and threats.
Biden officials browbeat executives from YouTube, Twitter (now X) and Amazon to censor their content and products, according to company emails the Judiciary Committee made public in May. This was despite the platforms’ arguments that the content did not violate their guidelines.
At Amazon, company officials were pressured by Andy Slavitt, Mr. Biden’s senior adviser on the administration’s COVID-19 task force, to create a “do not promote” policy for certain COVID-19-related books. Amazon officials said they created the policy after “criticism from the Biden people” that began in March 2021. That was when White House officials complained to Amazon about an anti-vaccine book for sale on the site by Dr. Vernon Coleman titled “Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe and Effective Is Lying.”
House investigators said Amazon quickly caved to the White House demands and immediately flagged 43 Amazon products, presumably vaccination-related books.
An internal email from an Amazon official said the company was “feeling pressure from the White House Taskforce” on reducing the visibility of books that questioned the vaccine.
The White House also targeted YouTube, emails show.
In a July 2021 email, Rob Flaherty, Mr. Biden’s director of digital strategy, pushed YouTube executives to more aggressively censor content that questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccinations.
The White House officials flagged content featuring Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now a former presidential candidate, and complained about a clip of Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, speaking at a Senate hearing and questioning whether the COVID-19 vaccine was safe and effective.
“I think we had a pretty extensive back and forth about the degree to which you all are recommending anti-vaccination content,” Mr. Flaherty wrote to YouTube in a message pressuring company executives to remove the content. “This seems to indicate that you are. What is going on here?”
YouTube executives told Mr. Flaherty that the content did not violate “our community guidelines,” but the platform soon began censoring videos questioning or criticizing pandemic rules and mandates and content about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
YouTube and other social media platforms, including Twitter, were under pressure to remain in good standing with the Biden administration.
Social media executives worried that the president could strip them of federally granted immunity from lawsuits related to their content or increase regulations governing the platforms if they did not follow their orders.
Biden officials delivered multiple indirect threats, publicly and privately, about taking steps to eliminate lawsuit immunity that protects social media platforms under the Communications Decency Act.
“Internally, we have been considering our options on what to do about it,” a White House official warned when one platform did not cooperate quickly enough.
Biden White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield specifically threatened to amend the law and “hold platforms accountable” if they did not censor speech, according to a March 2024 lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana in response to censorship of conservative viewpoints on social media. The Supreme Court dismissed the states’ claims in June, paving the way for further executive branch communications with social media platforms.
It’s not clear why Mr. Zuckerberg sent the letter to Mr. Jordan.
In addition to his mea culpa on bowing to the White House censorship pressure, Mr. Zuckerberg pledged to avoid funding election-related activities.
The billionaire poured millions of dollars into get-out-the-vote efforts in 2020, but critics say his money was used mainly to help Democrats win.
Mr. Zuckerberg said he spread private money to help jurisdictions run the 2020 elections during the pandemic. The funding, dubbed “Zuck Bucks,” was neutral despite conservative complaints that his money aided liberal districts.
Mr. Jordan hailed the letter as a big win for conservatives who flagged government-directed censorship and Facebook’s funding of election operations.
“That’s right, no more Zuck-bucks,” Mr. Jordan said on X. “Huge win for election integrity.”
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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