Facebook Makes Huge Decision Concerning Bans on COVID Origin Theories and Discussions

In early February, Facebook updated their COVID “false/debunked claims” list and began punishing individual users, groups, and conservative websites alike on both the FB and Instagram platforms for speculating on the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus concerning whether or not the virus was “man-made or manufactured.”

Considering the debate settled as most mainstream media outlets did at the time, included in Facebook’s announcement was a note about how they made the decision “following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO),” which caused major alarm bells to go off considering the WHO’s notorious reputation for being shameless apologists for China.

But now, after the relentless reporting of sites like this one, the Wall Street Journal, as well as the persistent questions being raised about the Wuhan virus lab leak theory by prominent Republicans like Sens. Rand Paul and Tom Cotton, Facebook has suddenly and curiously done a rather dramatic about-face, telling Politico today that the ban on claims made about the possible origins of the coronavirus has been lifted:

Scoop: Facebook will no longer remove posts claiming Covid-19 was man-made, as support mounts for probes into the virus’ origins & the Wuhan lab-leak theory https://t.co/siVvfWDb2I tip @Techmeme

— Cristiano Lima (@viaCristiano) May 26, 2021

Here’s more from the Politico story:

But a Facebook spokesperson said Wednesday that the origin language had been stricken from that list due to the renewed debate about the virus’ roots.

“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We’re continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge.”

To borrow an old infamous quote from Joe Biden, this is a big freakin’ deal and is a pretty significant concession from the Big Tech giant, though people shouldn’t come away from reading the news with the false impression that Facebook is somehow being magnanimous with this long-overdue reversal.

They’re not.

As I noted in an earlier piece, what was once considered a wild conspiracy theory straight out of Wackoville is only now viewed as credible simply because Biden’s senior medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci recently opened the door to it being so – and that only happened thanks to Senators like Cotton and Paul and websites like RedState and others continuing to bang the drum well after the media and Democrats pretended the issue had been put to bed.

Had conservatives bowed to Big Tech overlords and conceded their “point” about the coronavirus’ origins, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today, with the dam on supposed “misinformation” that wasn’t finally appearing to burst.

It shouldn’t have taken Fauci’s recent admission that he believes the lab leak theory is plausible to get media outlets, fact-checkers, and the powers that be at popular social media platforms to start treating the claim as credible.

But as President Trump, Cotton, Paul and other Republicans were raising red flags all last year about the possibility the virus leaked from a Wuhan, China lab, the media admittedly allowed their liberal biases to dictate what claims they treated seriously and which ones they mocked, ridiculed and supposedly “debunked.” The lab leak theory was one of them.

Because it was coming from Republicans, the approach from reporters was to treat the claim as suspect right from the start – unlike how they would have had it been made by Democrats. Journalists started out believing that the claim was false and set about proving it was rather than just simply asking questions and making determinations as to its validity after doing careful research and due diligence. And because of that it took over a year of the same Republicans and publications not backing down that got us to the point where Fauci finally said what he did and the media all of a sudden admitting for the record that the lab leak theory should be taken seriously.

To reiterate, it shouldn’t have taken this long for this discussion to be taken seriously. But it did. And the mainstream media, influential social media platforms, and their Democratic allies in Congress – all of who continue to have this bizarre allegiance to the WHO – are who we can look to in order to assign a lion’s share of the blame for why it’s taken over a year for China critics to be taken seriously.