After going 0-for-3 on Monday night’s broadcast network newscasts with the bombshell of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitting his platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) censored Covid-19 content and Hunter Biden posts over the last four years, ABC and NBC ended the brief blackout on Tuesday with a full segment on Good Morning America and brief on NBC’s Today.
This left CBS as the only network yet to have acknowledged these acts of anti-American, anti-free speech behavior sanctioned by the government.
NBC’s Today had a 39-second news brief, but there was no real substance to it with Saturday co-host Peter Alexander heavily underbaking it.
“Also ahead this morning, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making headlines, saying he regrets the social media company giving into pressure from the Biden administration to censor Covid content during the pandemic,” Alexander simplistically explained.
He noted Zuckerberg said in a letter to the House Judicary Committee that he wouldn’t acquiesce again and “regrets the decisions in 2021 to remove certain content, including humor and satire from Facebook, Instagram, as well as WhatsApp.”
That was all Alexander had to say about Zuckerberg as the rest was dedicated to the Biden-Harris administration defending censorship on Big Tech platforms because they felt the need to demand “responsible actions to encourage public health and safety.”
ABC’s Good Morning America had just about as close to an acceptable segment as one will get from liberal network news. First, the time spent was hefty with two minutes and 31 seconds in the first half hour.
“We do turn now to a story breaking overnight. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg claims he was pressured by the White House to censor content related to Covid-19 during the pandemic,” weekend co-host Whit Johnson began before tossing to senior investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky.
Katersky hit the nail on the head by explaining much of the hubbub about censorship of views about Covid-19 wasn’t just about the virus itself (or, in a topic he left unsaid, vaccines), but “views that challenged the general consensus in the medical community, especially about the origin of Covid-19” (i.e. the lab-leal theory).
“Now, Facebook’s founder surprisingly says they’re right. This morning, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg admitting he bowed to pressure from the Biden administration to censor content,” Katersky astutely added.
Katersky then ran through two key lines and one public admission from President Biden about Facebook that showed the levels of contempt the regime had for the platform (and thus a willingness to bully it) (click “expand”):
KATERSKY: The Facebook founder issuing a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that said senior administration officials pushed the social platform to censor posts about Covid-19 and expressed a lot of frustration when the company resisted. Zuckerberg saying: “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it,” adding “I feel strongly we should not bow to pressure from any Administration in either direction - and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” President Biden was asked about misinformation online in the summer of 2021.
PETER ALEXANDER [TO BIDEN] [on 07/16/21]: On Covid misinformation, what’s your message to platforms like Facebook?
BIDEN [on 07/16/21]: They’re killing people. I mean, really — look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated and that — and they’re killing people.
KATERSKY: Biden later walked back the comment insisting he wasn’t attacking Facebook.
After running through the White House’s response that Alexander touched on, Katersky then brought up the Hunter Biden censorship:
Zuckerberg going on to express regret for demoting content related to corruption allegations against Hunter Biden ahead of the 2020 election, alleging the FBI warned information circulating online was a Russian disinformation operation. “It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story” Zuckerberg went onto say the company has “changed its policies and processes to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Katersky concluded by crediting The Wall Street Journal for the first reporting the Zuckerberg letter and then acknowledged what’s obvious to readers here, but isn’t to Katersky and his fellow lefty journalists: “And, Whit, there really is a tension going on here between the government and Big Tech over how content on social media should be policed and whether conservative voices often get silenced.”
“Absolutely. The story getting a lot of attention this morning,” Johnson replied.
To see the relevant transcripts from August 27, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC).
