Zuckerberg Confirms FBI Involvement in Quashing Hunter Biden Laptop Story

Nothing here is surprising except the brazenness.

Appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience, Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark “The Alien” Zuckerberg discussed Facebook’s misinformation protocols in reference to Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election.

In the clip, Rogan asked how Facebook would handle “a big news item that’s controversial,” naming the laptop story as a specific example. Zuck responded,

The FBI basically came to us . . . “Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. . . We have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some sort of dump of, ah– that’s similar to [2016 Russian disinformation]. So just be vigilant.” So our protocol is different from Twitter’s, what Twitter did is, they said, “You can’t share this at all.” We didn’t do that. . . If something is reported to us as potentially, um, misinformation, important misinformation– we also use third party fact checking program, ’cause we don’t want to be deciding what’s true and false– and we, for I think it was five or seven days, when it was basically being, being determined whether [the laptop story] was false, the distribution on Facebook was decreased, but people were still allowed to share it.”

(Personally I think it’s really cool that Zuck’s programmers added in some filler words to his coding. Makes him seem almost human.)

Also how hilarious is it that he went out of his way to throw Twitter under the bus? It’s almost as good as when he suggested the third-party fact checkers are reliable. Man, wouldn’t that be a fun world to live in?

Anyway, Rogan asked Zuck to clarify what “decreased” meant, and Mr. Alien Robot Weird Head explained, “It basically– the ranking in newsfeed was a little bit less. So fewer people saw it than would have otherwise.” He couldn’t put a number on it when pressed, but acknowledged it was “meaningful.” He is REALLY hedging his words here. It’s remarkable to watch.

But it gets better: Zuck went on to say,

We just kind of thought, hey, look if the FBI– which I still view as a legitimate institution in this country, it’s, like, very professional law enforcement– if they come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard about something, then I wanna take that seriously.

HAHAHAHAHAHA I guess we know who owns his scrawny ass. “Legitimate institution?” Really, Mark? “Very professional law enforcement?” Come on.

Thennnnnn of course it got worse. Rogan asked, “Did they specifically say you need to be on guard about that story?”

Zuck responded, “No, I don’t remember if it was that specifically, but it basically fit the pattern.”

Hoo boy. So if we read between the lines a little bit, it sounds like what the FBI told Facebook was that they were expecting some election misinformation to pop up soon that “fit the pattern” of someone close to the predetermined winner of the election one of the major presidential candidates being outed as a giant sleazeball. Even if it wasn’t that specific, they communicated a “pattern.” They gave Facebook something to go on that was clearly informative enough for them to connect it to the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Can we safely say that the government interfered with the 2020 election now? Because if this isn’t enough to create reasonable doubt, what is? Will Jack Dorsey and Susan Wojcicki have to speak up and say, “Oh no way, they said the same thing to us?” Or will we never be allowed to say it, because we’re too far down the line in this unholy union of government agencies and media outlets?

This world, y’all. I tell you what.

At least New York Times Pitchbot is keeping things light.