Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg surprisingly opened up to podcast host Joe Rogan about the massive pressure the Biden administration and global governments put on Big Tech companies to censor speech. Zuckerberg is now calling for action.
During the Friday edition of The Joe Rogan Experience, Zuckerberg discussed not only government pressure on Meta but also how America has allowed foreign governments to prod and punish American tech companies for disfavored speech. Zuckerberg claimed that the European Union had fined tech companies “more than $30 billion” in the last decade or two. The Meta CEO called for this to end, saying, “The U.S. government should be defending its companies, right? Not be the tip of the spear attacking its companies.”
Zuckerberg continued to discuss the EU pressure campaign, telling Rogan, “If some other country was screwing with another industry that we cared about, the US government would probably find some way to put pressure on them. But I think what happened here is actually the complete opposite. The U.S. government led the kind of attack against the companies, which then just made it so like the EU is basically in all these other places just free to just go to town on all the American companies and do whatever you want.”
The Biden administration absolutely “led” the “attack” against free speech on social media abroad, outsourcing the censorship to foreign governments. These governments could impose fines that the U.S. government was prohibited from imposing in America. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken used the State Department’s Global Engagement Center to promote pro-censorship organizations and push governments to fight so-called disinformation.
On Jan. 7, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would scale back censorship on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. In the announcement video, Zuckerberg also brought up state-mandated censorship in the EU, Latin America and China, suggesting that the U.S. government had a role to play in fighting this.
The Meta CEO’s recent remarks represent a massive break with past Meta policy. Not only has MRC Free Speech America recorded 1,725 cases of censorship from Facebook, Instagram and Threads in its exclusive CensorTrack database, but Meta has taken a very different approach to EU censorship in the past.
Meta had previously heaped praise on the EU’s draconian Digital Services Act (DSA), a major driver of government pressure on tech companies to censor content.
In 2023, then-Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg claimed in a post that “from early on, we’ve been supportive of the objectives of the DSA and the creation of a regulatory regime in Europe that minimises harm effectively, protects and empowers people, and upholds their fundamental rights.” Clegg repeatedly praised the DSA, insisting that it take precedence over existing and future European laws.
A Nov. 2024 corporate post also praised the DSA while stressing Meta’s cooperation with EU regulators:
“From early on, we’ve been supportive of the objectives of the DSA and the creation of a harmonised regulatory regime that effectively protects people’s rights online, while continuing to enable innovation. We have had productive conversations with the European Commission throughout this process and we look forward to continuing to work transparently as the DSA develops.”
Nevertheless, Zuckerberg took a very different approach during his Rogan interview, recommending that the United States defend her economic “strategic advantage” by going to bat for American companies abroad. He added, “It's one of the things that I'm optimistic about with President Trump is [that] I think he just wants America to win.”
Zuckerberg went on to state that he believed Trump would fight back against censorious foreign governments: “So I think to some degree if the U.S. tech industry is going to continue being really strong, I do think that the U.S. government has a role in basically defending it abroad, and that's one of the things that I'm optimistic about will happen in this administration.”
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
