Zuckerberg admits Facebook wrongly censored Hunter Biden laptop stories
'Mediabuzz' host Howard Kurtz reports on the mainstream media's coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop in 2020.
PROGRAMMING ALERT: Watch Sen. John Kennedy discuss this topic and more on "The Faulkner Focus" on Fox News Channel on Monday, Oct. 14 at 11 am ET.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have a casual relationship with the truth. They told us that they aren’t trying to ban gas stoves, that our president’s abilities aren’t in decline, and that the border isn’t open. They called these conspiracy theories. It appears we are going to have to get some new conspiracy theories because all the old ones turned out to be true.
Monday marks the fourth anniversary of the biggest lie the Biden-Harris administration told: that Mr. Hunter Biden’s laptop was not real.
Three weeks before the 2020 election, the New York Post published its first article on the contents of Mr. Biden’s laptop. The report featured an email in which one of Mr. Biden’s business partners mentioned a meeting with President Biden. President Biden had denied meeting with Hunter Biden’s business associates while on the campaign trail.
HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP RE-EMERGES AS MEDIA EMBARRASSMENT AS IT BECOMES KEY EVIDENCE AT GUN TRIAL
Photographs later proved that President Biden had met with one of Hunter Biden’s business partners. In fact, everything on his laptop was authentic—and the FBI, members of the Biden-Harris campaign team and Hunter Biden himself knew it all along. Instead of squarely addressing the content of the laptop and telling the American people the truth, the Biden-Harris campaign developed an elaborate scheme to mislead voters just three weeks before the presidential election by pretending the laptop was Russian disinformation.
The American people understand it is not uncommon for political campaigns to spin negative stories, but this went far beyond spin. It was a lie.
Democracy only works when we can say what we believe. You are not free if you cannot say what you think.
Before the New York Post had even published its reporting, the FBI began to pressure Twitter and Facebook to suppress the story. Facebook restricted posts that linked to the story to ensure fewer people saw the content. Twitter completely banned links to the report and shut down the New York Post’s Twitter account entirely. The Post’s account remained censored for 16 days.
After the Post published the report, current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken—who was then a member of the Biden-Harris campaign team—began reaching out to members of the intelligence community to plant the seed that the laptop was a Russian hoax. Mr. Blinken ginned up more than 50 intelligence officials to sign a letter saying that the laptop had "the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
FLASHBACK: MSNBC, CNN, CBS TOLD VIEWERS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY WAS RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION
The CIA did nothing to stop the letter despite internal documents showing its officials had concerns that allowing the publication of these deceptive claims would not be "helpful to the Agency in the long run." Duh.
The mainstream media—many of whom were weepy after learning that the first Russian election conspiracy was a hoax—obligingly picked up and reported the letter’s talking points without ever attempting to verify the laptop. NPR called the story a "pure distraction" and refused to cover the story amid a competitive presidential race. In fact, most of the media ignored the laptop for years. Harsh? No. The truth.
Today, the media, FBI, CIA, and even some in the Biden-Harris administration have finally admitted that the laptop is real. The FBI even used the laptop to prosecute Hunter Biden’s gun charge conviction.
This conspiracy was never just about the laptop, though. It was about the Biden-Harris administration’s decision to use its power to shut down the New York Post’s social media, censor the American people who wished to discuss the report online, and deny voters access to the truth before the 2020 election.
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Today, we’re in a similar spot to where we were four years ago when the New York Post first published its story about Mr. Biden’s laptop. It’s three weeks until the election. While some seem to have learned, the Biden-Harris administration has only doubled down.
As recently as 2022, the FBI had 80 agents hounding Facebook and Twitter to censor COVID information. When this news broke, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said it was "not healthy" to discuss the administration’s censorship efforts.
It won’t be any better if Vice President Harris wins the election. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, continues to say, "There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy." But who gets to decide what’s misinformation or hate speech?
Somehow, Vice President Harris and Gov. Tim Walz understand that college students have a right to shout about their hatred of Israel, yet they forget those same rights exist for Americans who want to tweet about the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.
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Democracy only works when we can say what we believe. You are not free if you cannot say what you think. And no one can cast an informed vote when those in power censor relevant information. The American people know that the best way to correct misinformation is with more and better information, not censorship.
President Biden and Vice President Harris argue that they are just trying to protect democracy. Yet they have done all they can to prevent citizens from hearing the truth about their administration. That itself is anti-democratic. And it is immoral.
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