Facebook now ready to ‘push back’ against pressure to censor

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Suppressing information the government didn’t like on COVID-19, hiding the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election campaign. Anyone paying attention knew Facebook was doing these things, but to have founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg admit his company did it and it was wrong is shocking.

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The White House also isn’t denying they leaned on Facebook regarding COVID posts; in fact, they are defending their actions.

Zuckerberg admitted to the actions in a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee. He also said it wouldn’t happen again, which as a Canadian looking at Justin Trudeau’s Online Harms Act gives me some hope that companies will push back against government overreach.

Not that Trudeau would see it that way, just like Joe Biden’s White House sees no issue with what they did regarding COVID posts.

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire,” Zuckerberg wrote in his letter.

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Zuckerberg added that the decision to take material down ultimately rests with him despite the government pressure and that he has made changes to how the company operates in response.

“I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” he said.

A statement from the White House showed no sign of contrition or that they wouldn’t do this again.

“When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety,” the White House said.

“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.”

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What about the effects of hiding information, some of which turned out to be true?

During the pandemic, we had lockdowns enacted long after medical and elected officials should have known better. They were often pushed for the simple purpose of looking like something was being done to stop the virus rather than being open with people.

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Those questioning these measures or other government responses were censored by powerful social media platforms at the request of government. That is a dangerous precedent and not something any government should be so dismissive of when confronted with the truth.

“We’re ready to push back if something like this happens,” Zuckerberg wrote in his letter to Jordan.

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Better late than never.

Same on the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was broken by the New York Post three weeks before voting day in the last presidential campaign. The story was damning for Biden, but in a tight election Facebook and Twitter – which had yet to be purchased by Elon Musk – blocked the story.

They actively suppressed the story, calling it Russian disinformation.

“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation and in retrospect we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg wrote.

In the future, he said that will not happen.

Let’s hope that is the case here in Canada as well. While not as damning as the Hunter Biden laptop story, we’ve had stories shadow-banned or deemed misinformation.

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The Liberals have looked at taxing the capital gains on primary residences many times, but when we reported on this a few years back it was blocked by Facebook after complaints by the Liberals.

With Trudeau’s government looking to put tighter restrictions on what can be said, written and posted online, we have to hope there is push-back from companies like Meta. The Online Harms Act is wrapped up in protecting children from exploitation, which is the part of the bill with few critics.

There are too many other sections of the bill that give freedom-of-speech advocates pause for concern.

Zuckerberg was wrong to bend to the pressure of the FBI and the White House. Let’s hope he has seen the light and won’t be making that mistake again.

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