Mark Zuckerberg regrets complying with government censorship requests
He vowed not to make political contributions, to push back on requests for censorship from administrations regardless of party, and to stop demoting content pending review from fact checkers
Mark Zuckerberg has taken responsibility for Facebook’s censorship of certain Covid content which stemmed from government pressure, pressure he described as wrong. Content that was censored included humor and satire, according to Zuckerberg.
He also addressed the demotion of the Hunter Biden Laptop story, saying it was a mistake, and that since they became aware that it wasn’t Russian disinformation like the FBI had warned about, they changed their demotion policy to no longer demote content while waiting for a response from fact checkers on the content in question.
Zuckerberg expressed his regret in deciding to comply with the government’s requests in this letter to Chairman Jim Jordan, published earlier today on August 26th, 2024.
He also asserted his position on any current and future moderation policy, declaring that his teams will not compromise their content standards due to pressure in either direction, and are prepared to push back on any administration in the future.
In the final paragraph of the letter, Zuckerberg swore to refrain from making political contributions like he did in the previous election cycle, as he wishes to maintain a neutral position.
Except, he pretty much left it open to "fact -checkers" if they decide it should be censored, which of course will have the exact same result as if FB bowed to the demands of government. I assume too FB still has 75-100 "former" NSA, CIA, FBI, ETC "employees."
Now that the public is aware of government overreach, it costs nothing for him to be a patriot.