TheQuartering [7/28/2023]
Facebook removed content related to COVID-19 under pressure from the White House, including posts claiming the virus was man-made, according to internal company communications leaked to The Wall Street Journal.
“Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing — rather than demoting/labeling — claims that Covid is man made,” Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, asked in a July 2021 email to colleagues.
According to the outlet, a Facebook vice president in charge of content policy responded: “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more,” referencing the Biden administration.
“We shouldn’t have done it,” the VP added.
The emails were exchanged around August 2021 — three months after Facebook reversed its ban on posts asserting COVID-19 was man-made.
The flip-flip came more than a year after the social-media giant banned a well-reasoned Post opinion column by China scholar Steven Mosher speculated about a potential lab leak. More than a year later, Mosher still hasn’t had his account reinstated.
Another email viewed by The Journal was circulated the month prior, after Biden accused platforms like Facebook of “killing people” by allowing so-called “misinformation” to propagate unchecked.
In July 2021, the Facebook VP circulated a memo assessing the difference between Facebook’s content policies and the Biden administration’s demands — some of which the Meta-owned company appeared ready to push back on.
“There is likely a significant gap between what the WH would like us to remove and what we are comfortable removing,” the Facebook executive wrote.
One request Facebook was ready to reject, the VP suggested: The White House’s desire that the company take action against humorous or satirical content that suggested the vaccines aren’t safe, according to The Journal.
“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 VP wrote.
Clegg responded: “I can’t see Mark [Zuckerberg] in a million years being comfortable with removing that — and I wouldn’t recommend it.”
According to The Journal, emails showed discussions surrounding Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a 2024 presidential candidate and notorious vaccine skeptic who had his Instagram account revoked over its COVID-related content but not his Facebook account, as it didn’t contain the same type of posts.
