(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Biden administration staffers would “scream” and “curse” at Facebook employees to censor COVID-19 posts on social media, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed on Friday.
On Tuesday, Meta announced the elimination of its politically biased fact-checkers as part of a company-wide shift to restore free speech. Three days later, popular podcaster Joe Rogan released a nearly three-hour-long interview with Zuckerberg, who blamed the Democrat administration for coercing his company into censoring conservatives.
HOLY SHLIT. Mark Zuckerberg says the Biden admin called his employees and “screamed and cursed” at them to take down Covid/vaccine content. They wanted Meta to censor memes too.
When he pushed back, the Biden regime started investigating his companies.
“It was brutal.” pic.twitter.com/rNwZtoq0hO
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 10, 2025
Zuckerberg said he was “sympathetic” to COVID-19 censorship policies early in the pandemic but admitted that the extension of “two weeks to flatten the curve” complicated Meta’s rules.
“This really hit the most extreme, I’d say during it was the Biden administration when they were trying to roll out the vaccine program,” the social media mogul told Rogan, emphasizing his support for vaccines. “I think that while they were trying to push that program, they also tried to censor anyone who was basically arguing against it.”
Zuckerberg added, “They pushed us super hard to take down things that honestly were true.”
Facebook and Instagram faced pressure to remove content questioning vaccine side effects, according to Zuckerberg, who claimed Meta was initially wary of the Democrat government’s demands.
Rogan asked Zuckerberg to clarify who exactly he was referring to, to which the Meta CEO vaguely said, “It was people. It was people in the Biden administration.”
Zuckerberg claimed he was “not involved in those conversations directly” with government staffers.
Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan spoke openly about the Biden administration’s anti-First Amendment governance Tuesday on Fox News. He said the Democrat administration’s social media censorship made it “open season” for other countries to suppress free speech.
Meta executive Joel Kaplan admits the Biden administration put “a lot of pressure” on Facebook, Instagram to censor COVID-19 “humor and satire.” pic.twitter.com/SXHGbtUhf7
— Julianna Frieman (@JuliannaFrieman) January 7, 2025
Kaplan added that the Biden administration put “a lot of pressure” on Facebook and Instagram to censor “humor and satire,” especially in content related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Later in his interview with Rogan, Zuckerberg emphasized the “breakdown in trust” resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic not just in the U.S., but across the globe.
The Meta CEO recognized the timing of his company’s policy shift—just days before Trump takes office—and remarked that there is “no good time” to make drastic changes.
Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.
