Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience that officials in President Joe Biden’s administration allegedly yelled and used profanity when pressuring Meta employees to censor content.
Documents published by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan in July 2023 show the Biden administration urged Facebook to remove posts about COVID-19 it considered misinformation. Zuckerberg recounted that Meta faced backlash and investigations after President Biden accused Facebook in July 2021 of “killing people” for not adequately censoring COVID-19-related content.
“Basically, these people from the Biden Administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse,” Zuckerberg said. “And it’s like these documents are—it’s all kind of out there.”
When Rogan asked if these calls were recorded, Zuckerberg said he didn’t believe so, but confirmed the existence of related emails. “The emails are published. It’s all kind of out there… And basically, it just got to this point where we were like, ‘No, we’re not going to take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous,’” Zuckerberg explained.
He described a specific instance where officials demanded the removal of a meme featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, which humorously speculated about future class-action lawsuits tied to COVID-19 vaccines. Zuckerberg said Meta refused, stating, “We just said, ‘No, we’re not going to take down humor and satire. We’re not going to take down things that are true.’”
Tensions escalated after Biden publicly accused Facebook of harming people by not removing alleged misinformation. Zuckerberg described the subsequent government investigations as “brutal.”
In May, a House Judiciary Committee report characterized Facebook’s clash with the Biden administration over COVID-19 censorship as a “knife fight.” In August, Zuckerberg expressed regret in a letter to Jordan, admitting that Facebook succumbed to government pressure to censor certain content.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
Zuckerberg further alleged that the FBI had warned Facebook of a potential “Russian propaganda” operation shortly before the Hunter Biden laptop story emerged in 2020. “The FBI basically came to us and some folks on our team and said, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert… there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that, so be vigilant,’” he said.
While he could not confirm whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was explicitly mentioned, Zuckerberg noted it followed “the pattern.”
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
