On an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” released Friday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg painted a picture of Biden administration officials berating Facebook staff during requests to remove certain content from the social media platform.
“Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse,” Zuckerberg told podcast host and comedian Joe Rogan. “It just got to this point where we were like, ‘No, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous.'”
The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment about Zuckerberg’s remarks.
It’s not the first time that the co-founder of Facebook has said administration officials pressured the company to remove posts.
In a letter last year to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that the White House “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to remove “certain COVID-19 content including humor and satire.”
Zuckerberg said Facebook, which is owned by Meta, acquiesced at times, while suggesting that different decisions would be made going forward. He said the company “made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
The White House responded at the time in a statement saying: “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety. 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.”
Podcaster Joe Rogan.
On Rogan’s show, Zuckerberg said the administration had asked Facebook to remove from its platform a meme that showed actor Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV screen advertising a class action lawsuit for people who once took the Covid vaccine.
“They’re like, ‘No, you have to take that down,'” Zuckerberg said, adding, “We said, ‘No, we’re not gonna, we’re not to take down humor and satire. We’re not gonna take down things that are, that are true.'”
That meme was included as evidence in an amicus brief filed by congressional Republicans in a case that made it to the Supreme Court in 2023.
In that case, plaintiffs, which included Louisiana, Missouri and several Facebook users who had posts removed or downgraded, sought to bar government officials from communicating with social media companies.
The Supreme Court ultimately threw out the lawsuit in a 6-3 ruling, saying in part that there was plenty of evidence of platforms moderating content without government intervention.
“In fact, the platforms, acting independently, had strengthened their pre-existing content moderation policies before the government defendants got involved,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in her opinion.
Zuckerberg’s comments on Rogan’s podcast come days after he announced that Meta would end its fact-checking program and replace it with a community-driven structure similar to the Community Notes system on X. He also announced that his platforms — Facebook and Instagram — would relax rules related to political content.
Zuckerberg is one of several tech moguls, reportedly including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, whose companies have pledged to give $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural committee.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
