With another contentious presidential election looming, the creator of one of the world’s largest social media platforms is admitting that conservatives have been censored at the behest of the Biden-Harris administration. In a letter on Monday, Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that federal government agencies and the administration of President Joe Biden “repeatedly pressured” Facebook executives to censor conservative news and opinions regarding the 2020 election and COVID-19 “misinformation.”

In the weeks ahead of the 2020 election, Zuckerburg wrote, “the FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma…” He continued, “That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply.”

The New York Post story reported on emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop which revealed that “Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company…” The story also reported, “Other material extracted from the computer includes a raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter, who’s admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually explicit images.” Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites censored the story, which was published less than three weeks before Election Day, preventing it from being shared online.

Zuckerberg had shared this story previously in 2022, telling podcast host Joe Rogan that “the FBI, I think, basically came to us … and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, like you should be on high alert.’ … We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election … there’s about to be some kind of dump … that’s similar to that.” While Zuckerberg at the time claimed that Facebook users were “still allowed to share” the story, he did admit that the censorship was “meaningful” in terms of its impact.

In his letter on Monday, Zuckerberg also related that over the course of 2021 “senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree.” While the Facebook founder acknowledged that “it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions,” he did note, “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.” Zuckerberg added, “Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”

Finally, Zuckerberg addressed “the contributions I made during the last presidential cycle to support electoral infrastructure.” Nicknamed “Zuckerbucks,” the Facebook founder’s financial involvement in both the 2020 election and the 2022 midterm elections has allegedly benefited Democratic Party ballot-harvesting schemes — an allegation Zuckerberg acknowledged in his letter. He wrote, “My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter said, “Credit where credit is due: Zuckerberg coming out and saying he regrets cooperating with the Biden-Harris administration to censor political views the administration disagrees with is a positive development for the First Amendment.” Carpenter continued, “Unfortunately, it won’t undo the damage done over the last three and a half years, but it can hopefully encourage others in the social media and technology space to push back against government coercion when it comes to online speech.”

According to the “Facebook Files,” published by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and compiled from subpoenaed documents, the Biden-Harris administration demanded that Facebook “play ball” by changing its algorithm to suppress news stories from conservative-leaning sources and amplify stories from left-leaning legacy media outlets. The White House eventually asked Facebook to just “kick people off” the platform for sharing conservative news and opinions. Much of Facebook’s censorship activity centered around COVID-19-related posts, especially those questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 shots or the legality of COVID-19 shot mandates.

Another report, this one published by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, revealed that federal government agencies were aware that their censorship demands may be considered First Amendment violations and thus created an intermediary entity through which to identify social media posts and users to censor and request that they be censored.

In May of this year, it was revealed that federal agencies like the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have resumed discussions with social media companies regarding “disinformation” and censorship, just in time for another presidential election.

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?

Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Hills, in his article, “We Won’t Be Silenced: The Time Is Now For The Church To Stand Against Censorship Tyranny,” wrote:

American citizens better be concerned about the precarious state of their First Amendment rights. The assault is real, it’s happening right now, and it’s time to take a stand.

It’s not a coincidence that free speech and freedom of religion are foundational to the U.S. Constitution. Our founders knew that without these two building blocks, our society would crumble. That’s why it’s frightening when we see more and more instances of censorship and government overreach threatening these basic rights.

Big Tech companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google have a tremendous amount of power in controlling the flow of information and the shaping of public discourse.

When they start selectively censoring, suppressing, and even canceling content that they don’t agree with, they are essentially acting as a de facto arm of the government, manipulating and crushing public opinion. Some have even started calling this evil The Censorship Industrial Complex.

It’s clear that something has gone seriously wrong in American society when the freedoms that millions of its citizens have died protecting, are discarded with such callousness. As Christians, we are not to stand idly by and allow this to continue. The Bible tells us in 2 Thessalonians that there is a restraining force in the world at work to hold wickedness at bay. That force is the Holy Spirit dwelling within His people, and it is our duty as the Church to fight against the powers of darkness.

We must not be afraid to speak the truth and share the love of Christ with others, even when it’s unpopular or inconvenient.

As Christians, we are called to be salt and light in the world. We need to be a positive influence on our culture and engage in the public square to shape the course of our nation. We must never give up our freedom to speak and worship as we choose, and we must always be vigilant in defending those freedoms.