Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,” in Dirksen building on Wednesday, January 31, 2024.
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The Biden Administration “pressured” Facebook-parent Meta to “censor” content related to Covid-19, the social media giant’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg alleged, adding that he regrets some of the decisions taken in relation to the U.S. government’s requests.
“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 in a letter to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee.
The letter was posted on the Committee’s Facebook page and on its account on the X social media platform on Monday.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the letter’s authenticity to CNBC.
Zuckerberg said it was ultimately Meta’s decision to take down any content, but he noted he believes that the so-called “government pressure was wrong.”
“I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg said.
NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment Tuesday morning, but did not immediately receive a response.
In a statement to Politico, the White House said: “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety.”
“Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present,” it added.
Zuckerberg said Meta made some choices that, “with the benefit of hindsight and new information,” the tech giant would not make again.
“Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction — and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again,” Zuckerberg said.
In August 2021, Facebook said it had removed more than 20 million posts related to Covid-19 for violating its content rules across the main social networking site and Instagram.
That year, the White House criticized social media firms, including Facebook, for allowing misinformation related to the Coronavirus to spread across their platforms.
Zuckerberg’s letter underscores the ongoing debate about the extent to which social media firms should moderate content.
The House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has alleged that big technology firms colluded with the government to censor speech.
Zuckerberg also discussed his position on the upcoming U.S. presidential vote, noting that he made contributions via the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative toward electoral infrastructure during the previous round at the polls. He said he will not be doing that for the upcoming election.
“My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another — or to even appear to be playing a role,” Zuckerberg said.
An Amazon worker moves boxes on Amazon Prime Day in the East Village of New York City, July 11, 2023.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Amazon is extending its Prime Day discount bonanza, announcing that the annual sale will run four days this year.
The 96-hour event will start at 12:01 a.m. PT on July 8, and continue through July 11, Amazon said in a release.
For the first time, the company will roll out themed “deal drops” that change daily and are available “while supplies last.” Amazon has in recent years toyed with adding more limited-run and invite-only deals during Prime Day events to create a feeling of urgency or scarcity.
Amazon launched Prime Day in 2015 as a way to secure new members for its $139-a-year loyalty program, and to promote its own products and services while providing a sales boost in the middle of the year. In 2019, the company made Prime Day a 48-hour event, and it’s since added a second Prime Day-like event in the fall.
Prime Day is also a significant revenue driver for other retailers, which often host competing discount events.
Illustration of the SK Hynix company logo seen displayed on a smartphone screen.
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Shares in South Korea’s SK Hynix extended gains to hit a more than 2-decade high on Tuesday, following reports over the weekend that SK Group plans to build the country’s largest AI data center.
SK Hynix shares, which have surged almost 50% so far this year on the back of an AI boom, were up nearly 3%, following gains on Monday.
The company’s parent, SK Group, plans to build the AI data center in partnership with Amazon Web Services in Ulsan, according to domestic media. SK Telecom and SK Broadband are reportedly leading the initiative, with support from other affiliates, including SK Hynix.
SK Hynix is a leading supplier of dynamic random access memory or DRAM — a type of semiconductor memory found in PCs, workstations and servers that is used to store data and program code.
The company’s DRAM rival, Samsung, was also trading up 4% on Tuesday. However, it’s growth has fallen behind that of SK Hynix.
On Friday, Samsung Electronics’ market cap reportedly slid to a 9-year low of 345.1 trillion won ($252 billion) as the chipmaker struggles to capitalize on AI-led demand.
SK Hynix, on the other hand, has become a leader in high bandwidth memory — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers — supplying to clients such as AI behemoth Nvidia.
A report from Counterpoint Research in April said that SK Hynix had captured 70% of the HBM market by revenue share in the first quarter.
This HBM strength helped it overtake Samsung in the overall DRAM market for the first time ever, with a 36% global market share as compared to Samsung’s 34%.
OpenAI has been awarded a $200 million contract to provide the U.S. Defense Department with artificial intelligence tools.
The department announced the one-year contract on Monday, months after OpenAI said it would collaborate with defense technology startup Anduril to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.”
“Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the Defense Department said. It’s the first contract with OpenAI listed on the Department of Defense’s website.
Anduril received a $100 million defense contract in December. Weeks earlier, OpenAI rival Anthropic said it would work with Palantir and Amazon to supply its AI models to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO, said in a discussion with OpenAI board member and former National Security Agency leader Paul Nakasone at a Vanderbilt University event in April that “we have to and are proud to and really want to engage in national security areas.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Defense Department specified that the contract is with OpenAI Public Sector LLC, and that the work will mostly occur in the National Capital Region, which encompasses Washington, D.C., and several nearby counties in Maryland and Virginia.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is working to build additional computing power in the U.S. In January, Altman appeared alongside President Donald Trump at the White House to announce the $500 billion Stargate project to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.
The new contract will represent a small portion of revenue at OpenAI, which is generating over $10 billion in annualized sales. In March, the company announced a $40 billion financing round at a $300 billion valuation.
In April, Microsoft, which supplies cloud infrastructure to OpenAI, said the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency has authorized the use of the Azure OpenAI service with secret classified information.