- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims the Biden administration pressured his company to censor posts about COVID-19 vaccine side effects in the United States.
- Zuckerberg revealed that administration officials called and verbally abused Meta's team, demanding they remove certain posts, including a meme featuring Leonardo DiCaprio discussing potential vaccine compensation.
- The CEO stated that his company refused to remove posts that were considered truthful, including satire and humor.
- In July 2021, Biden accused Facebook of "killing people" for not censoring COVID-19 misinformation, leading to investigations by various government agencies.
- Zuckerberg blamed the government for social media censorship, arguing that it was not legal for officials to call and threaten repercussions for posts they deemed to be misinformation.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has accused outgoing President Joe Biden and his administration of pressuring his company to censor posts related to the side effects of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines in the United States.
During an appearance on the popular podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," Zuckerberg revealed that the Biden administration pushed Facebook to censor posts about COVID-19 that they deemed to be misinformation.
"Basically, these people from the Biden Administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse," Zuckerberg said. "And it's like these documents are — it's all kind of out there."
According to Zuckerberg, the administration wanted Facebook to remove certain posts, including a meme featuring Leonardo DiCaprio talking about potential compensation for those who had received the COVID-19 vaccine.
"They wanted us to take down this meme of Leonardo DiCaprio looking at a TV, talking about how ten years from now or something, you're going to see an ad that says, 'Okay, if you took a COVID vaccine, you're eligible, like for this kind of payment,' like this sort of like class-action lawsuit-type meme. And they're like, 'No, you have to take that down.'" he explained. "We just said, 'No, we're not going to take down humor and satire. We're not going to take down things that are true.'"
The situation escalated further when Biden accused Facebook of "killing people" in July 2021 for not censoring so-called COVID-19 misinformation, leading to investigations and backlash from various government agencies. (Related: CDC, Facebook colluded to CENSOR COVID-19 vaccine safety FAQs, emails reveal.)
"I mean, Biden, when he was – he gave some statement at some point, I don't know if it was a press conference or to some journalist, where he basically was like, 'These guys are killing people.' And I don't know. Then like all these different agencies and branches of government basically just like started investigating and coming after our company. It was brutal."
Zuckerberg blames government for social media censorship
Zuckerberg went on to describe the demands as "ridiculous" and stated that his company would not comply with the requests to remove posts that were truthful. He emphasized that the meme in question was harmless humor, not a call to action or misinformation.
"This really hit the most extreme during the Biden administration when they were trying to roll out the vaccine program. I'm personally pro-vaccine as it has more positive than negative. But I think that while they were trying to push that program, they were also trying to censor anyone who is basically arguing it," he said. "And they pushed us super hard to take down things that were honestly true. They said that anything that says that vaccines have side effects, you need to take down. I was like we are not gonna do that."
Overall, Zuckerberg blamed the government for his company's censorship during and after the 2020 election.
"I don't think that the pushing for social media companies to censor stuff was legal," Zuckerberg told Rogan. "At some level, I do think that having people in the administration calling up the guys on our team and yelling at them and cursing and threatening repercussions if we don't take down things that are true... it's pretty bad."
Head over to Censorship.news for similar stories.
Watch this Fox Business report about Rob Flaherty's involvement in the VIP censorship portal used by Facebook to silence content critical of COVID-19.
This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.
More related stories:
Facebook's 'free speech' overhaul 'opened season on just about every topic except one.'
Facebook built a VIP censorship pipeline for the White House and CDC, documents reveal.
Facebook provided secret online tools and trained CDC employees how to censor the American public.
Charges withdrawn against 4 Canadians who refused to comply with COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
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