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Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of "Meta" has stated that senior officials of the Biden administration have continuously exerted pressure to censor content related to COVID during the pandemic.
The Executive Director of Meta sent a letter a day ago to the Judicial Committee of the House of Representatives.
Zuckerberg said he regretted not speaking up earlier about this pressure, as well as other decisions he had made as owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp about removing certain content.
"I believe that the government's pressure was wrong and I'm sorry we didn't speak out more about it," he said.
This included content that Zuckerberg said was "humor and satire", with government officials expressing "a lot of disappointment" when Meta refused to do so, he claimed.
"Ultimately it was our decision whether or not to remove content, and we own our decisions, including the COVID-19-related changes we made to our implementation following this pressure," Zuckerberg said.
"I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of new information, we wouldn't make today," he added.
During the pandemic, in July 2021, President Joe Biden said that social media platforms like Facebook were "killing people" for allowing misinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on his platform.
The letter also referred to the FBI "warning" the Meta about a possible Russian disinformation operation involving the Biden family and Burisma ahead of the 2020 election.
Zuckerberg said that after the FBI's warning, a story appeared in the New York Post involving allegations of corruption against Mr. Biden's family, and Meta responded by sending him to fact-checkers and sitting him down pending a response. It has since emerged that the story was unrelated to Russian disinformation.
The social media boss said it has now changed its internal policies to "make sure this doesn't happen again.
He said the company no longer takes content down while it waits for it to be fact-checked.
In response to Zuckerberg's letter, the White House said in a statement: “When faced with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible action to protect public health and safety.
"Our position has been clear and consistent: We believe that technology companies and other private actors should consider the effects their actions have on the American people while making independent choices about the information they present."
Republicans have trumpeted the letter as a personal victory as campaigns for this year's November elections continue to heat up.
It also reflects the growing influence of social media within politics and elections and comes after X owner Elon Musk previously threw his weight behind Donald Trump's bid for a second term.
In the letter, Zuckerberg also said he will no longer make any contributions to support the election infrastructure in this year's US presidential election, so as to "not play a role one way or another."
In the last election, the billionaire contributed $400m (£303m) through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, his philanthropic venture with his wife, to support election infrastructure, a move that drew criticism and lawsuits from some groups who said the move it was partisan.
It comes as experts are warning that this year's US election could be engulfed by misinformation and misinformation on social media, with artificial intelligence and other tools producing more fake news and content that could mislead voters.
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