Facebook took down content that speculated COVID-19 was man-made after pressure from President Joe Biden’s administration, according to internal company correspondences reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Emails, obtained by the House Judiciary Committee, reveal Facebook executives deliberating about their approach to handling user posts regarding the possible man-made origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the WSJ. The company’s executives expressed confusion and regret over the censorship of these posts in internal emails.
“Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man made?” Facebook’s president for global affairs, Nick Clegg, inquired in an email to colleagues in July 2021.
“We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more,” replied a Facebook vice president responsible for content policy, referring to the Biden administration. “We shouldn’t have done it.” (RELATED: White House Officials Were ‘Outraged’ When Facebook Didn’t Remove Certain Posts, Jim Jordan’s Released Docs Reveal)
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 20: House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) listens during a hearing with the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Capitol Hill on July 20, 2023 in Washington, DC. Members of the committee held the hearing to discuss instances of the U.S. government’s alleged censoring of citizens, political figures and journalists. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The conversation occurred three months after Facebook’s parent company chose to lift the prohibition of posts claiming COVID-19 was man-made because of the growing debate surrounding the origin of the virus, according to the WSJ. Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan acquired the email and other company communications as part of an investigation by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee into the Biden administration’s social media censorship efforts.
Biden also condemned so-called misinformation on social media in July of 2021, stating vaccine skeptics are “killing people.”
Following these comments, Facebook took more aggressive action in removing posts disfavored by the White House.
“There is likely a significant gap between what the WH would like us to remove and what we are comfortable removing,” a Facebook vice president said in an internal memo, according to the WSJ.
In particular, the White House targeted comedic posts that joked about the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the emails reviewed by the WSJ.
“The WH has previously indicated that it thinks humor should be removed if it is premised on the vaccine having side effects, so we expect it would similarly want to see humor about vaccine hesitancy removed,” the Facebook vice president wrote, according to the WSJ.
Meta and the White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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