A report by the Wall Street Journal citing internal company communications, on Friday (July 28) said that Facebook removed content from its social media platform after pressure from the White House including posts claiming the virus was man-made. This comes a day after the United States President Joe Biden’s administration reaffirmed its position on social-media content moderation.
Posts Facebook asked to remove
In a leaked email procured by the WSJ, Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs in July 2021 wrote, “Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing — rather than demoting/labeling — claims that Covid is man made.”
Subsequently, the Facebook vice president in charge of content policy wrote, “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more,” referencing the Biden administration, as quoted by the WSJ. The VP added, “We shouldn’t have done it.”
The emails in question were exchanged months after the social media platform had decided to end its policy of banning certain posts questioning whether COVID-19 was the result of a Chinese virology lab leak.
The WSJ also published an email that was circulated after Biden, in July 2021, accused platforms like Facebook of “killing people” by allowing so-called “misinformation” to propagate unchecked. The Facebook VP after a few days also circulated a memo that showed the difference between the company’s content policies and the Biden administration’s demands.
“There is likely a significant gap between what the WH would like us to remove and what we are comfortable removing,” wrote the Facebook executive. According to the WSJ report citing an email from the VP also said the White House also wanted the social media platform to take down humorous or satirical content that suggested the COVID-19 vaccines aren’t safe.
To which Clegg responded: “I can’t see Mark [Zuckerberg] in a million years being comfortable with removing that – and I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Furthermore, Facebook executives also expressed concerns that taking down posts showing American users reluctant about getting vaccinated could further fuel vaccine hesitancy and even warned that removing such posts could give rise to conspiracy theories, reported the WSJ.
The report by the Journal also comes a day after the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee which is in the midst of investigating what GOP lawmakers have claimed is the Biden administration’s unlawful censoring of users on social media.
The lawsuit was filed by Republican attorneys general of the US states of Missouri and Louisiana, in 2022, and accused the Biden administration of pressuring social media platforms to take down dissenting views, including criticism of mask mandates and objections to COVID-19 vaccination.
On Thursday, the GOP lawmaker from Ohio, Jim Jordan reasserted his claims of pressure on Facebook to censor conservative comments after he abruptly called off a vote Thursday to hold Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress.
In a series of tweets, Jordan revealed what he claimed were “never-before-released” documents contained in the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoena, which he called “Facebook files” and asserted “that Facebook and Instagram censored posts”.
Jordan also claimed that the alleged censorship and change in content moderation policies of the social media platform were changed due to “unconstitutional pressure” from the Biden administration.
One of these emails was written in April 2021, when a Facebook employee circulated an email for Facebook CEO Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing: “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House” to remove posts.
White House reaffirms stance
Meanwhile, the White House, on Thursday said that the discussions with social media companies were aimed at protecting public health, safety, and security during a pandemic.
“We have consistently made clear that we believe social media companies have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects of their platforms that they have on the American people, while making independent decisions about the content of their platforms,” said the White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.
She added, “That continues to be the case. That has not changed, on what we believe here.”
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