Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan in an episode published Friday that Biden administration officials pushed his company hard to censor content regarding COVID-19.
“Basically, these people from the Biden administration would call up our team and, like, scream at them and curse,” he said.
“It just got to this point where we were like, ‘No, we’re not gonna … take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous,’” Zuckerberg added.
The Big Tech CEO offered the example of a meme that showed actor Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV screen sometime in the future to an ad promoting a class-action lawsuit for those who took — or had loved ones take — the COVID-19 vaccine.
“They’re like, ‘No, you have to take that down,’” Zuckerberg recounted. “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.’”
JUST IN: Mark Zuckerberg reveals that officials in the Biden admin called his team at Meta to “scream and curse” at them to take down certain posts during COVID.
One of the posts was this meme of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV with the caption, “Did you or a loved one take… pic.twitter.com/fhpMlXpztN
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 10, 2025
The intensity of the pressure from administration officials directed at Facebook picked up after President Joe Biden asserted that the social media platform was “killing people” by the false information it was allowing to be posted.
Will you use Facebook more now that it has made changes?
The president made the statement to a gaggle of reporters outside the White House in July 2021 after he was asked, “On COVID misinformation, what’s your message to platforms like Facebook?”
“”They’re killing people,” Biden responded. “Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.”
Q: “On COVID misinformation, what’s your message to platforms like Facebook.”
President Biden: “They’re killing people. Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated and they’re killing people.” pic.twitter.com/87PrHEJBs3
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 16, 2021
Later in the interview, Zuckerberg made clear, “I’m generally pretty pro about rolling out vaccines. I think, on balance, the vaccines are more positive than negative, but I think that while they’re trying to push that program, they also tried to censor anyone who basically was arguing against it.”
“They pushed us super hard to take down things that … honestly were true,” he said.
“They basically pushed us and said, ‘Anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down.’ And I was just like, ‘We’re not going to do that,’” Zuckerberg recalled.
Zuckerberg’s Meta has taken several moves toward the right since November’s election.
The company announced Friday that it was ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, policies.
Earlier this week, Zuckerberg announced that Meta was ending what he described as its “politically biased” fact-checker program in favor of a community notes model like the one used on X.
“We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes [from fact checkers] and too much censorship,” Zuckerberg explained.
Woah. 😲
Zuck going full anti-censorship, following Elon and X’s lead 😤
Based Zuck arc and vibe shift complete ✅🔥 pic.twitter.com/bsC7LrYL0n
— Beff – e/acc (@BasedBeffJezos) January 7, 2025
Meta also pledged $1 million for President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund and placed UFC president Dana White, a Trump ally, on its board of directors.
Zuckerberg met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late November.
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