White House Pressured Facebook to Remove COVID-19 Vaccine Meme, Documents Show

White House officials applied increasing pressure to Facebook to remove posts that allegedly contained discouraging people from receiving COVID-19 vaccines, including a meme about the vaccinated suffering long-term health problems, according to documents made public on July 27. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at an event in New York City on Oct. 25, 2019. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

White House officials applied increasing pressure to Facebook to remove posts that allegedly contained content discouraging people from receiving COVID-19 vaccines, according to documents made public on July 27.

“We are re facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more COVID-19 vaccine discouraging content,” a Facebook employee told CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg in April 2021 in one of the messages.