Zuckerberg’s Censorship Role Rebrand Refuted In Facebook Files

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission to give Facebook’s key role in the censorship industrial complex a makeover, but his attempts to save face one alleged fact-checking policy change and tampon at a time flounder in the face of the evidence.

The Silicon Valley bro’s attempt to drastically shift Facebook away from the radical policies that have defined its presence in the Big Tech world while the second Trump administration takes over the federal government is no coincidence. Zuckerberg even took a page out of President Donald Trump’s playbook by going on the number one podcast in the world, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” to explain the alleged end to the Big Tech company’s partisan “fact-checking” program he announced earlier this month.

One of the most newsworthy moments of the episode occurred when Zuckerberg admitted to host Joe Rogan that members of the Biden administration “would call up our team and like scream at them and curse” demanding censorship of content, including memes, that it claimed undermined the regime’s Covid-19 vaccine agenda.

According to the Facebook founder, the employees on Meta’s censorship team rejected and even pushed back on the Democrat regime’s pressure to remove posts and “take down humor and satire.”

“It basically just got to this point where we were like ‘No, we’re not going to take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous,’” Zuckerberg said.

“Did you record any of those phone calls?” Rogan asked. “I want to listen.”

“No I don’t think [we did] but, I mean, the emails are published. It’s all kind of out there,” Zuckerberg said, referring to the Facebook Files published by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan in 2023. The communications in question were only handed over by Facebook under the threat of holding Zuckerberg in contempt.

Zuckerberg’s version of events suggests Facebook stood its ground against the government. It’s those same Facebook Files, however, that prove his words ring false.

Contrary to Zuckerberg’s claims, the communications published by Jordan in 2023 expose several instances when Facebook caved in the face of a Biden official’s temper tantrums.

President Joe Biden’s Senior Adviser Andy Slavitt pushed Facebook to remove a Leonardo Di Caprio-themed meme about class action compensation for people who took the Covid jab. While it’s true that Facebook’s President for Global Affairs Nick Clegg warned it “would represent a significant incision into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US,” Facebook continued to give in to the Biden administration.

The Facebook Files show Slavitt’s meltdown ultimately spurred Chegg and Facebook’s team to appease the White House by quietly downranking content from conservatives like Tucker Carlson for criticizing the Biden administration’s Covid-19 shot campaign. Emails reveal that it was “continued criticism of our approach from the [Biden] administration” that propelled Facebook to “brainstorm some additional policy levers we can pull to be more aggressive against . . . misinformation.”

In another email thread published by Jordan, Biden’s then-Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty pushed Facebook to reduce and “kick” accounts that the Biden administration claimed were spreading “misinformation” and even manipulate the algorithm against them.

Zuckerberg purported in his JRE appearance that Facebook resisted Biden administration bids like these. Instead, the Big Tech company’s censors fulfilled Flaherty’s dreams that it would “play ball” by “demoting” posts casting doubts on the Covid-19 jab. Covid content that couldn’t be easily or justifiably removed under Facebook’s terms and conditions would be “contained” and sent to the company’s third-party “fact-checkers” for further false impugnment.

Zuckerberg wants the millions of people who tuned into his conversation with Rogan to believe that Facebook was a heroic middle-man who told off the government when it tried to throttle dissenters. In reality, Facebook was a willing accomplice in the Democrat-fueled war on free speech. No amount of Zuckerberg’s revisionist retelling can erase the evidence that Facebook eagerly participated in the Biden administration’s scheme to silence its political enemies, dissenters, and publications like The Federalist.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.