Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that the Biden-Harris administration has “repeatedly pressured” Meta’s teams to censor posts related to COVID-19.

Zuckerberg expressed regret for not being “more open” about the situation, explaining that changes had been made to the platform’s content moderation that, in hindsight, would not be implemented today. He said: “For months in 2021, senior officials in the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed much frustration with our teams when we did not agree. Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to remove content, and we are accountable for our decisions, including the COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in response to that pressure.”

Zuckerberg stressed that he believes the government pressure is wrong and reiterated his determination not to compromise content standards due to pressure from any government. “We are prepared to fight back if something like this happens again,” he added.

The House Judiciary Committee, which is aligned with the Republican Party, highlighted Zuckerberg’s letter on social media platform X, stating: “Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things: 1. The Biden-Harris administration ‘pressured’ Facebook to censor Americans. 2. Facebook censored Americans. 3. Facebook took down the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. A huge victory for free speech.”

In the letter, Zuckerberg also recalled an incident in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned Meta about a possible Russian disinformation operation linked to the Biden family and Burisma in the run-up to the 2020 election. In response, Meta temporarily downgraded a story about corruption allegations against Joe Biden’s family. Zuckerberg admitted that the story was not Russian disinformation and that the decision to downgrade it was a mistake.