Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed this week that senior officials in the Biden administration pressured his social media company to censor COVID-19 content during the pandemic, adding that if this were to happen again, he would push back.
"In 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," Zuckerberg wrote on Aug. 26, 2024, in a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives.
"I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it," he wrote. "I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn't make today."
Wow!
So many questions.
And no substantive answers from Zuckerberg, the government, or the media.
First of all, If this were the United States in 1776, 1850 or 1950, how much uproar would there have been over free speech intimidation by the government?
Just imagine, "President Washington pressured our newspaper to omit information he didn’t like.” Or "President Eisenhower told The New York Times it could not print anything that undercut or challenged his domestic policies."
But in 2024, Zuckerberg’s comments generate little more than, "Everyone knows that. So what?" Or, "Vote for Trump."
Which we should.
But the precedent has been set, nobody has been held accountable, and sadly, I believe that electing Trump will not fix everything.
What has happened to America?
- Why isn’t there political uproar on the level of a constitutional crisis?
- Where are the U.S. Supreme Court cases?
- The acts of Congress expressing outrage?
- The indictments?
- Isn’t this a bigger revelation than anything claimed in the Watergate and Iran Contra scandals from years ago?
- Where’s the media?
- Where’s the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)?
Mark Zuckerberg is playing the victim here.
Seriously?
The facts surrounding his "revelation" frankly suggest otherwise.
My main question for Mr. Zuckerberg: "You said the government was wrong. Why was it wrong?" "What standard did they violate?"
I’d love to hear your answer. I want you to say its name: The First Amendment.
I want you to say that freedom of speech is a natural, individual right, and that you knew it all along. My next question: "If you, Mr. Zuckerberg, knew what Biden and Harris did was wrong three years ago, what has changed?"
"Why are you able and willing to speak out against it now, but not back then?
I understand how dictatorship works.
The government threatens to do something horrible to you (or your loved ones) if you don’t do what they command.
Perhaps the Biden-Harris regime did that to you, Mr. Zuckerberg, in 2021.
If so, please provide details.
Biden is still in office; Congress has already told us we may impeach even former presidents; and Kamala Harris aims to be president.
So, we need to know those details now.
Additionally, the timing of Zuckerberg’s statement is odd.
If a kidnapper took you hostage and held a gun to your head, you wouldn’t reveal the kidnapper’s atrocities while still held hostage; you’d wait until you were released.
Zuckerberg wants us to believe he was bullied and threatened; yet the people with the power to do so are still in power.
And even more importantly, what’s going to happen to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the key members of their government responsible for what Zuckerberg claims?
Will they be investigated and indicted?
If they are found guilty, will they be held accountable in any way?
We all know the answers to those questions.
If forced to defend themselves, Biden and Harris would rationalize by claiming, "It was a public health crisis."
But we know the vaccine didn’t work — because people continue to get COVID to this very day. We know that pharmaceutical companies — major financial backers of Biden-Harris — made billions and never carried any legal liability — unheard of in American business.
If censorship was so necessary under those circumstances, why didn’t we get better results? And if the vaccine was so great, why was censorship justified?
If forced to defend themselves in a trial, Biden-Harris would claim COVID fascism was a war against a common enemy, and therefore the government must impose censorship.
But why?
What’s the point of preserving a free society if you’re eradicating that free society in the act of preserving it?
What good is your health if you can't think, speak, and act in freedom?
It's such a glorious time to be a totalitarian.
I wish Mark Zuckerberg would stop making it so easy for them.
(A related article may be found here.)
Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology. He is the author of "Grow Up America" and "Bad Therapy, Good Therapy," available exclusively at www.DrHurd.com. He has been quoted in and/or appeared on over 30 radio shows/podcasts (including Rush Limbaugh and Larry Elder), on Newsmax TV, and writes two self-help columns weekly. Dr. Hurd resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Read more of Dr. Hurd's reports — here.