Zuck, Musk & Durov: Who Caved to Government Censorship and Who Defended Free Speech
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As social media’s clout surges, Big Tech titans are clashing with Western governments over "limits" to freedom of speech.
Meta* CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that he caved to pressure from the Biden administration to censor free speech on Facebook, specifically COVID-19-related information.
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg's admission came on the heels of X owner Elon Musk's latest accusations against the Meta CEO, that "Zuck… censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data."
Zuckerberg has repeatedly faced criticism from both ends of the American political spectrum. Republicans accuse the Meta CEO of censoring conservative voices, while Democrats castigate him for failing to adequately moderate online content.
US conservatives accused Zuckerberg of helping Democrats during the 2020 vote, after the tech entrepreneur and his wife donated around $420 million to election offices across the country.
In October 2020, both Facebook* and Twitter censored the much-talked-about story of Hunter Biden's "laptop from hell."
In the wake of the 2020 election and the January 6 unrest, Meta banned former President Donald Trump and some of his supporters.
Elon Musk
In May 2022, Musk said that he could "no longer support" the Democrats since they had morphed into the party of "division and hate."
He bought Twitter in October 2022, reshuffled is team and rebranded it as X in July 2023 in a bid to bring an end to censorship on the social media platform.
In November 2022, Musk revealed that Donald Trump's account had been reinstated.
In December 2022, Elon Musk collaborated with several investigative journalists to unveil the "Twitter Files," which exposed the social media platform's moderation decisions and the involvement of US government agencies in content censorship.
Musk's initiative led to him coming under fire from liberal non-profits and politicians in both the US and EU, who accused Musk of political bias, spreading "misinformation," and favoring right-wing voices.
In an April interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Telegram founder Pavel Durov praised Elon Musk's decision to buy Twitter, by saying that the decision opened the door to innovation and growth.
7 February 2023, 15:13 GMT
Pavel Durov
Pavel Durov has long been portrayed as a maverick, who opposes government control and encourages free speech on his platform.
Since settling down in Dubai, Durov has repeatedly become the target of foreign spying operations, seeking to interfere with the moderation of the encrypted Telegram messenger.
In 2017 French-Emirati intel agencies allegedly carried out Operation "Purple Music" targeting Durov, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Durov revealed in 2021 that he had been on the list of the Israeli cyberintelligence firm, NSO Group, since at least 2018 as a person of interest for its government clients using the Pegasus spyware.
Durov disclosed in April that he had been a US intelligence target, adding that one of his employees was approached by American cybersecurity officials who sought to create a backdoor to the encrypted Telegram app to spy on users.
In August, Durov was arrested in France under the pretext of not abiding by the nation's laws concerning online moderation and was prohibited from leaving the country. US journalist Tucker Carlson suggested that the Biden administration could have had a hand in Durov's arrest.
*Banned for extremism in Russia
