Zuckerberg ‘fesses up about Biden censorship
STOP THE PRESSES! This is a major story.
Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg has made a major admission. Despite years of denial by him, the Biden White House and virtually every Democrat on the planet, Zuckerberg now admits that not only did the White House put pressure on him and his staff to censor factually accurate information unfavorable to the Biden administration, but that he acquiesced to their demands.
The two most obvious incidents involved information related to the Covid Pandemic and the notorious Hunter Biden laptop.
In the first case, Facebook only allowed the view of the White House (read that as Dr. Anthony Fauci) on controversial issues – such as the benefits of masking in various situations or school and business closing policies.
In terms of the Hunter laptop, Facebook – at the demand of the White House – actually censored the truth in favor of the lie – that the laptop did not belong to Hunter but was a Russian hoax. This was particularly egregious since it arguably influenced the outcome of a close election.
The demands for censorship went beyond informational content but included humor and satire determined to be offensive by the White House. The Facebook censorship at the behest of Team Biden was so severe that Zuckerberg’s social media platform banned stories about the laptop reported in leading newspapers.
The admission by Zuckerberg is more than surprising. It is shocking. He confirms what Trump, Republicans and many media outlets were saying – a truth that came out much later.
Zuckerberg’s startling admission came in the form of a letter from the Facebook CEO to the House Judiciary Committee headed up by Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan. In it, Zuckerberg referred to “repeated demands” by the White House — and that Biden officials would get angry when he denied requests he considered excessive.
In retrospect, Zuckerberg now considers all the requests and demands of the White House to be excessive. He apologized for not refusing the requests at the time – and for not informing the public of the pressure from the White House. He said he would not allow that to happen in the future.
When the accusation of improper censorship by the Biden Administration leaked out, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended the unprecedented actions as an effort to protect the public from disinformation.
The current White House has mounted a similar defense in the face of the Zuckerberg letter. It issued this statement.
“Our position has been clear and consistent: We believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present.”
The Biden White House position may be consistent, but it is far from clear. It is a meaningless platitude. It does not address the administration’s serious assault on free speech.
One should not diminish the magnitude of the abuse of power with regard to the Hunter laptop. The Biden White House concocted a totally phony story to protect the Biden family from the truth in order to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Team Biden not only told a huge lie, but they coerced the news services and social media platforms to restrict reporting to the phony Russian hoax claim – and censor the truth. They used the FBI and the intelligence community to parrot the lie – even though they knew better. Secretary of State Antony Blinken organized more than fifty current and former intel officials to sign a public letter propagating the lie.
Such chicanery should have minimally resulted in the removal of Blinken and FBI director Wray – and the stripping of security clearances for many of those who signed the letter. Such a flagrant abuse of presidential power and violation of the president’s oath to defend the Constitution could reasonably have resulted in an impeachment inquiry. But none of that happened or would happen with the current cultural and political bias.
Regardless, voters should not forget this travesty. And especially not forget that Vice President Harris was a key player in promoting what she most surely knew to be disinformation. She was in on the scheme from the get-go.
So, there ‘tis.
RESTART THE PRESSES! This is an old story…
Zuckerberg’s letter is in response to pestering by Jim Jordan (the senator and ex-coach who looked the other way while his students were getting molested by the team doctor). Zuckerberg said, yes, the Whitehouse asked us to censor untrue information about Covid, and they did. COVID was a national health threat, and it’s understandable that the White House would want dangerous information taken down. Good for the White House.
Zuckerberg also said that he received a notice from the FBI stating that the Hunter Biden laptop story was mostly Russian disinformation. Facebook made the decision to “demote” the story while they investigated, and ultimately decided to censor some information. It was their decision, not pressure from the government. Nobody “used’ the FBI – they had credible information that the laptop story was fake and that Giuliani was a dupe of the Russians.
So, Larry uses a letter solicited by haranguing from a pedophile to create a sensational story critical of Democrats. Interesting that Larry uses a cartoon showing the press to be lapdogs to the far right regarding the Hunter Biden Fake laptop story. That’s should be Larry’s picture on the lapdog’s face (close resemblance anyway!).
Joseph S Bruder … You are a blowhard of the first order. But this response is over the top even for you. You are looking at the clock on the wall and cannot read the time. Zuckerberg said that he was pressured by the White House on several issues — including controversial pandemic information and the Hunter laptop. He said Facebook was wrong and he apologized … said he will not let it happen again. It is now proven that the laptop belonged to Hunter … the information on it is his … and the Biden administration created the Russian hoax story out of whole cloth. There was no “credible information that the laptop was a Russian deal.” Those peddling the hoax bs were lying — and they knew it. Who would even take ownership of such a preposterous story. Where is “credible” source you claim? Do you think the Russians invented the story that they committed a hoax? The media that did not get censored were those carrying the Biden lie like a bunch of … oh … lapdogs?. Yes the story is old, but Zuckerberg’s letter is not. And you say it was solicited by the Judiciary committee. What difference does that make? You say Zuckerberg got notified by the FBI that the laptop was a hoax. And why? To pressure him not to run it. Duh! In terms of your general bias induced stupidity … and propensity to make outrageous statements … you have out done yourself with this piece of intellectual trash. LOL You must be dieting on Tom’s bullshit sandwiches.
Horist; my goodness but you have become the bastion of bad name calling. “Blowhard,” did you did that up from the 60’s?
But you are wrong on this: Zuckerberg said pressured on deleting lies about the pandemic. He said this a year ago. Other social media and journalism sites said the same. So did the Whitehouse. Over a year ago too. You show us where Zuckerberg said he was pressured on Hunter’s laptop. The letter most certainly says the opposite. That he was not.
Of course, you keep miles away from the 800lb gorilla on the table. The investigation records of Jordan and Comer where all things imagined, keyword imagined, are tried on FOX but never good enough to make it to court. They have had witness after witness refuted, perjury, or just fled and never turned up. Where are the dozens of weaponizing whistleblowers promised, as in Jordan has documented testimony in hand, three showed up and they recanted or were refuted. Jordan and Comer have spent four years in investigation failures and this one, based on a new letter outlining year-old or longer news, tried in FOX, has you salivating one more time.
You don’t even seem to be able to remember this was all said before and it amounts to little.
I am glad someone stepped up and told these Tower of Babel owners to act responsibly and stop the lies. I am glad that someone realized that our covid response was the worst of any developed nation where we rank 222 out of 239 countries and where we-the-people, based on vaccine lies, murdered 250,000 people that basically died due to lack of vaccine due to social media lies. Now, you can say it’s my opinion that 250,000 people passed unnecessarily. But it’s impossible to deny our per capita death rate during covid against the 238 other countries tracking it. We rank 222 in that list where number 1 wins; number 222 sucks pondwater from the bottom of the muddy pond.
So yeah, I am glad someone tried to stop the lies. Lies are not free speech IF lies kill people.
You are right. The letter is new. The information is old, yesterday’s news, and not actionable. Wasn’t the last time either and right did the same dance back then to no advantage.
Good luck.
Now, let’s tell the EJ Carroll digital rape story again. There’s a new book, kind of like a new letter, out…….He got her alone, he slammed her against the wall, he ……..
Speaking of far-right lapdogs, Leon Skum’s X is trying to censor Felon Trump’s latest slur against the military. Clicking on the NPR link through Twitter results in receiving a message that reads, “Warning: this link may be unsafe. The link you are trying to access has been identified by X or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe, in accordance with X’s URL Policy.”
This is from www .rawstory.com/trump-arlington-scandal-npr-x/
Larry, Besides being an ignoramus, you are a truly disgusting person who has no allegiance to anything other than the Republican Party. As I noted in a late breaking comment to one of your prior comments/posts-how on earth could the Biden WH have influenced the Hunter Biden laptop story to sway the 2020 election? Zuckerberg specifically said he was urged by the WH to can laptop information, but you seem to overlook who was in the WH prior to the election. Unfortunately wasn’t Biden, but the orange turd you continue to support. As for Covid (and this is where you get disgusting rather than just an ignoramus) we had a very serious problem with Covid and there was a lot of misinformation going around-primarily by the fools in your party. Fauci was trying to do everything he could to prevent the spread of Covid, and undoubtedly at times he erred on the side of caution. You and the others in the arse party are disgusting to fault him for that-the Biden WH was merely trying to prevent the misinformation that was swirling around at that time. Zuckerberg was playing up to the house idiots by apologizing for that-he did the right thing in preventing Covid misinformation on FB.
I enjoy PBP for bringing me the issues of the day but often wonder why PBP seems to ignore other fact-based points of view in lieu of a conservative communication purity perspective. Horist on PBP seems more open to a 360-view of topics than others and often mentions at least a tidbit from “the other side, the dark side.”
Republicans, who champion banning books with wild abandon, are now offering free-speech support to the scurrilous on the internet. Burn the books and feel that internet burn. Then you have the story itself which like all things Jordan and Comer is never new news if it is news at all. Horist does not seem to see it.
His “tidbit” here is the Whitehouse statement pretty much guaranteeing that Horist knows the dark side’s story but rejects it as news. His first sentence: “STOP THE PRESSES! This is a major story” is very funny, considering the source. No, not Horist but Jordan.
This is the Republican House. The same House that has over the past four years failed at nailing Hunter, failed at impeaching Joe, failed at any significant findings in the weaponization investigations, basically has failed at everything they do in these feckless investigations. Except preannouncing their failures on FOX since they fucking can’t make it to court for lack of evidence. Along the way, they have witnesses recanting, lying, rebutted, or fleeing the jurisdiction rather than turn up. Jordan promised the written testimony of dozens of whistleblowers, think he’s trotted out three. Years ago. All refuted, shot down, or crashed n burned in some horrible manner.
And now, here we go again. We have the tarnished Zuckerberg, under Congressional pressure from Jordan and Karma Karma Comer Man. They threaten subpoenas, contempt of congress and worse. They pick on the Zuck for good reason. He needs them right now.
Zuckerberg gives Jordan a political victory with FOX but not enough to get dragged into court where it is alrighty in legal batter with DOJ over antitrust so it’s a good something for nothing trade given ONLY THE LETTER IS NEW, the news in the letter is old. But Jordan and Comer don’t care about stuff, they got the FOX fluff and that’s enough. A month ago, their antitrust suit got a bad ruling with the judge using the word monopoly, so Meta betta be on berry berry good behavior.
Cluckerberg’s letter says three things:
1) the Biden administration pressured the company “to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humor and satire” which the letter says is wrong and next time we’ll do something. This is not new news and says that the pressure was “wrong.” Zuckerberg added that his company was “ready to push back if something like this happens again.”
This is not news. And they admitted they did it to a lot of these same folks. And then there is the recent Supreme Court case that ruled for the Biden administration on this that somehow Horist overlooks.
Meta documents show they knew the vaccine misinformation it communicated slowed the vaccine rollout causing unnecessary death. Meta produced several reports on its misinformation and failed to share that research. All known over a year ago with documents sent to Jordan and Comer. What they knew then is new news now with a brand-new letter from a tarnished executive under antitrust fire from DOJ. I bet if JG had a decent search engine, we could find this story on PBP about a year ago; it had it’s fifteen minutes
2) Zuckerberg’s letter says his company demoted the laptop story while it conducted a fact-check. He first told Joe Rogan an FBI disinformation warning contributed to the decision. Twitter suppressed as well without Biden administration pressure which was documented a year ago. He did not, in the letter or before, say he was pressured in any way on the laptop story.
3) The letter says some hogwash about Zucker’s VOTING ACCESS n donations IN 2020 that he does not want to do again. Thanks for taking your brave stand on Citizens United. Thanks for avoiding spending your money to get people to vote….for anything…. He also said that and did that in 2022 so this one is two years old but Jordan and Horist eat it up as new news.
Free speech, telling lies, misinformation, disinformation are all very important issues we need to either resolve or devolve further into our Tower of Babel. But on this one, as on all things Jordan, all things Comer, take it to court and then we can stop the lying. Four years and still nothing but crickets; this one is more of the same. Funny that Horist did not tell the whole story.
There was no slur against the military you damned fool
The National Cemetary in Arlington is the solemn resting place of our nation’s heroes, the veterans of our military. Felon Trump has made multiple derogatory comments about the military. He was told before he entered that no outside cameras would be allowed, and yet he bullied his way in, with his staff pushing around a young woman. He broke the law taking cameras in there, and his staff could have been charged with assault, except the young woman was afraid of getting doxxed by Felon Trump and attacked by his goons. Felon Trump made a campaign commercial in Arlington National Cemetary, which is illegal. And even after getting criticized for his actions, he went ahead and published the video showing multiple graves besides those of the soldier’s family he was with.
The men and women in that cemetary fought for many of the rights that Felon Trump tries to take away. Maybe one family likes Felon Trump, but a lot of them don’t, and don’t want their fallen soldier’s in pictures or videos with someone who shows such disdain for the military. Trump’s very presence there is an insult to the military.
Let’s get real, Gents. Zuckerberg only wrote the letter in the first place because the Judiciary Committee is looking into social media to potentially regulate them as an utility. He had to come clean, and it was better for him to do it now. Zuck is not penitent; he is pragmatic.
Due to social media’s irresponsible behaviors opposite the First Amendment, and their owners’ election meddling that erodes the power of the American voter, the tech titans of Silicon Valley have shown alert voters where their true allegiances lie – their own egos and wallets. They have abused their power. Power without good purpose becomes abuse – of their standing and their value to society. Absolute power always corrupts absolutely.