WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th July, 2023) The US House Judiciary Committee is postponing a vote to hold Meta (banned in Russia) CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt of Congress after the social media company provided evidence of pressure from the US government to censor content online, Chairman Jim Jordan said on Thursday.
"Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House," Jordan said in a statement via social media.
The evidence shared by Jordan includes pictures of emails from Facebook employees, produced as a result of a congressional subpoena. In an April 2021 email from Facebook's president for global affairs Nick Clegg, the executive told his team that senior Biden adviser Andy Slavitt was outraged at them for not removing a post.
The post in question was a meme that made reference to potential long-term health impacts of the COVID-19 vaccine. Slavitt expressed concerns that the meme undermined the Biden administration's effort to build confidence in the vaccines, according to the emails.
The pressure on Facebook from the White House was characterized as a "crossroads" by Facebook Vice President of Public Policy Brian Rice.
Facebook ended up demoting a video posted by former Fox news host Tucker Carlson in expectation of pressure from the White House, even though the video was found not to have violated any of the platform's policies.
In August 2021, Facebook began to change its misinformation policies to address "continued criticism" by the White House, one email said.
"These documents, AND OTHERS that were just produced to the Committee, prove that the Biden Admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance," Jordan said in the statement.
The Judiciary Committee has decided to hold contempt in abeyance in light of Facebook's newfound commitment to cooperate with the panel, the statement said. However, contempt is "still on the table" if Facebook fails to cooperate in full, the statement added.
