Mark Zuckerberg claims Biden officials ‘screamed’ and ‘cursed’ at Meta execs over Covid vaccine posts, ‘It was brutal’
In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Mark Zuckerberg claimed Biden officials phoned executives at Meta to “scream” and “curse” at them, ordering them to remove negative posts on Facebook about the coronavirus vaccine. “It was brutal,” Zuckerberg said during his interview on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’. “The US government should be defending its companies, not be at the tip of the spear attacking its companies.”
Zuckerberg also said Biden aides demanded that Meta remove posts that correctly stated that vaccines could have side effects. “Basically it just got to this point [where we told them], ‘No, we’re not going to take down this thing that was true,’” Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg told Rogan early in the conversation that he is generally “pretty pro rolling out vaccines” and that they are “more positive than negative.” “But I think that while they’re trying to push that program, they also tried to censor anyone who is basically arguing against it,” he said.
‘They pushed us super hard’
This is not the first time Zuckerberg levelled such allegations against the Biden administration. Back in August, he wrote in a letter to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee saying the administration “pressured” Meta to “censor” Covid-19 content. He added that he ended up regretting some of the decisions he made following those requests.
Reiterating his claims, Zuckerberg told Rogan, “And they pushed us super hard, to take down the things that were honestly were true. They basically pushed us and said, you know, anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down.”
The Meta boss also praised Donald Trump, saying the president-elect “just wants America to win.” Among various large companies, Meta, too, announced that it was contributing $1 million to Trump’s inauguration
Meanwhile, Meta said it is replacing its fact-checking with a “community notes” system, where it depends on users to correct misinformation being shared on the platform. X works in a similar way.
Biden addressed the policy change in a press conference on Friday, January 10, saying, according to CNBC, “The idea that a billionaire can buy something and say, by the way, from this point on, we’re not going to fact-check anything, and, you know, when you have millions of people going online, reading this stuff, it is — anyway, I think it’s really shameful.”