After an FBI notice, Mark Zuckerberg buried the Biden laptop narrative

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has explained how the social media site used an algorithm to bury the Hunter Biden laptop scandal when it originally broke in 2020.

On Thursday’s Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan questioned Zuckerberg on how Facebook handles contentious news stories and the problem of media censorship.

According to Zuckerberg, the platform did not totally suppress the item like Twitter did, but it was nevertheless pushed down users’ newsfeeds for up to a week until additional information that would clarify whether the report was accurate or not was released.

He said that the platform chose to restrict sharing of the news but did not outright forbid it.

Ahead of the election in November 2020, the FBI warned Meta’s staff to be on the lookout for Russian propaganda.

Around the same time, the New York Post published the initial account of the scandalous information found on Hunter Biden’s computer, which Twitter later decided to hide.

The laptop tale “has all the typical earmarks of a Russian information operation,” according to a letter signed at the time by more than 50 former senior intelligence officials.

In an effort to divert focus during the interview on Thursday, Zuckerberg reiterated how Twitter had blocked the story’s dissemination and had locked the Post’s account.

Therefore, we chose a different route from Twitter. The FBI basically came to us and several members of our staff and said, “Hey, can we help you? “Hey, just so you know, you should probably be really vigilant. In the 2016 election, there was a lot of what we believed to be Russian propaganda. We are aware that there will likely be some sort of dump of, or anything comparable. Thus, exercise caution “‘

According to Zuckerbeg, if something is alleged to be false information, a third-party fact-checking team evaluates the claim.

So, unlike Twitter, our protocol is distinct. Twitter acted by stating that you are not permitted to share this at all. That’s not what we did,’ Zuckerberg remarked. We also employ this third party fact-checking programme because we don’t want to be the ones to decide what is real and untrue when something is reported to us as potentially, disinformation, or crucial misinformation, he stated.

I believe it took about five to seven days to determine whether it was true or not. Although Facebook’s distribution was lessened, sharing was still permitted. You could still distribute it. You could still eat it, he advised.

When questioned what he meant by “decreased distribution,” Zuckerberg responded that he meant that the story will appear further down on people’s newsfeeds.

Rogan questioned the percentage of the distribution’s decline.

He said, “I don’t know off the top of my head, but it’s significant.” However, in general, many people were still able to share it. There were numerous complaints that this was the situation.

We weren’t quite as categorical about it as Twitter was. We simply assumed that the FBI, which is still in my opinion a genuine institution in this nation, was a highly skilled law enforcement agency. They approach us and alert us to the fact that we must exercise caution. Then I want to consider that seriously,” stated Zuckerberg.

Did they clearly state that you should be cautious about that story? Rogan enquired.

Zuckerberg said, “I don’t remember if it was that explicitly, but it roughly fit the pattern.”

But Rogan persisted, asking what happened when the story was suppressed even though it turned out to be true.

‘Yeah. It’s awful how it ended out in retrospect, I mean. After the fact-checkers looked at it, nobody was able to refute it, correct? In essence, it went through a time where it received less distribution,’ remarked Zuckerberg.

“I think it probably stinks, but I think in the same sense that perhaps going through something like a criminal trial, but ultimately being found innocent, stinks.” Even though you were found not guilty at the end of the criminal trial, it still stinks, he said.

I’m not sure if the response would have been to do nothing or to have no process. The procedure seemed to me to be fairly sensible. We still permit sharing, but clearly you don’t want circumstances like that,’ he said.

Conservatives accused Twitter for banning the story both before and after the 2020 presidential election.