Mark Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan podcast Biden administration tried to censor memes in shock episode
Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan that the Biden administration tried to force him to censor a meme about the Covid-19 pandemic, and responded with a ‘brutal’ retaliation when he refused.
The Meta chief said in a surprise appearance on the popular podcast that the White House would ‘call up our team and scream at them and curse’ over social media memes.
‘Basically, it just got to this point where we were like no, we’re not going to take down things that are true,’ Zuckerberg said. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
Specifically, the billionaire said Biden wanted him to take down a meme of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV, seemingly from the film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The meme, he said, poked fun at how ’10 years from now you’re going to see an ad that says if you took a Covid vaccine you’d be eligible for a payment’ in ‘sort of like a class action lawsuit type meme.’
After being told to take down the meme, Zuckerberg claimed he and his team responded: ‘No we’re not we’re not going to take down humor.’
‘Did you record any of those phone calls? God, I want to listen,’ Rogan chimed in.
Zuckerberg’s appearance on the podcast is the latest in a string of public statements the social media mogul has made in recent months over censorship, including a shock admission in August that he was ‘pressured’ by the Biden administration to carry out their demands.
Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan that the Biden administration tried to force him to censor a meme about the Covid-19 pandemic in a surprise appearance on the popular podcast
The Meta chief said the White House would ‘call up our team and scream at them and curse’ over social media memes
Zuckerberg said Biden wanted him to take down a meme of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at a TV, seemingly from the film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
As is typical with Rogan’s podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian made no early announcement of Zuckerberg’s appearance before it was published on Friday afternoon.
After being released to YouTube, the interview quickly racked up over 200,000 views in under 45 minutes – with some of Rogan’s interviews reaching huge audiences such as his 53 million viewer episode with Donald Trump two months ago.
In Friday’s episode, Zuckerberg said a turning point for his approach to censorship under Biden came when the president publicly said social media memes combatting his pandemic narrative were ‘killing people.’
‘All these different agencies and branches of government just started investigating and coming after our company,’ he said.
‘It was brutal, brutal.’
Rogan said the demands were clearly a ‘massive overstepping’ from the federal government, adding: ‘And also, you weren’t killing people.
‘This is the thing with all of this, they suppressed so much information about things that people should be doing, regardless of whether or not you believe in the vaccine.’
Rogan seemed stunned by Zuckerberg’s claims over the ‘brutal’ approach the Biden administration took to censorship during the pandemic
Zuckerberg claimed that as soon as he pushed back on Biden’s demands, ‘all these different agencies and branches of government just started investigating and coming after our company’
Rogan, who was an outspoken sceptic of the Covid-19 vaccine, seemed stunned by Zuckerberg’s claims over the ‘brutal’ approach the Biden administration took to censorship during the pandemic.
