Facebook quietly drops ‘fake news’ flag on report revealing COVID-19 escaped from China lab

[redleghunter]

Facebook quietly drops ‘fake news’ flag on report revealing COVID-19 escaped from China lab


April 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Facebook has finally removed the “fake news” warning it had attached to a New York Post article published earlier this year that suggested that the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan, China biolab.

According to Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and an expert on China, Facebook has yet to offer an apology for the unwarranted “fake news” label the social media giant had pinned to his February 22 op-ed, “Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab. ”

“After we raised the alarm, Facebook uncensored that Steve Mosher oped about the origins of the Wuhan virus,” tweetedNew York Post opinion editor, Sohrab Ahmari. “But the company didn’t apologize to the NYPost or offer explanation/accountability.”


Journalist Sharyl Attkisson previously reported that the lead fact-checker on Mosher’s story, Danielle Anderson, has ties to the Wuhan biolab.

“You cannot make it up,” tweeted Attkisson. “The ‘fact checker’ Facebook is using to censor a documentary discussing possibility that coronavirus came from Wuhan lab is [a] scientist who worked at Wuhan lab with Chinese communists.”

Facebook quietly drops ‘fake news’ flag on report revealing COVID-19 escaped from China lab

 

[timothyu]

EVERYONE has their own agenda.

 

[GaveMeJoy]

“They didn’t say they were sorry” lol soft

 

[redleghunter]

“They didn’t say they were sorry” lol soft

Well a public correction would have been the professional way to approach this.

The liberal media is also to blame for dismissing this story. When asked they always change the subject to “COVID19 is not an engineered bio weapon.” When the article never addresses this.

The Level 4 facility does in fact test strains of coronaviruses for research and testing.

 

[Tom 1]

The liberal media is also to blame for dismissing this story. When asked they always change the subject to “COVID19 is not an engineered bio weapon.” When the article never addresses this.

There’s plenty of coverage of this theory in the liberal press, as here:

Trump Says U.S. Investigating Whether Virus Came From Wuhan Lab

Here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...cd5850-85a8-11ea-878a-86477a724bdb_story.html

And more general highlighting misinformation from China early on in the spread of the virus: How the Coronavirus Has Tested China’s System of Information Control

The coverage of the crisis has been balanced and informative since the beginning, I’m yet to see an example of the kind of thing the press are regularly accused of.

 

[redleghunter]

There’s plenty of coverage of this theory in the liberal press, as here:

Trump Says U.S. Investigating Whether Virus Came From Wuhan Lab

Here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...cd5850-85a8-11ea-878a-86477a724bdb_story.html

And more general highlighting misinformation from China early on in the spread of the virus: How the Coronavirus Has Tested China’s System of Information Control

The coverage of the crisis has been balanced and informative since the beginning, I’m yet to see an example of the kind of thing the press are regularly accused of.

Ok. The NYTs and WashPo pieces are from April. So they don’t count.

The New Yorker piece is from Feb 7 but makes no mention of the virus escaping a laboratory.

The Ahmari piece from the NY Post was 22 February and tagged by Facebook as “fake news.”

 

[solid_core]

Journalist Sharyl Attkisson previously reported that the lead fact-checker on Mosher’s story, Danielle Anderson, has ties to the Wuhan biolab.

Lol, similar to BBC main director of religion section was a muslim. So almost everything they published regarding Christianity is against Christianity. Not sure if its so today, too, I stopped visiting their website.

I would never use FB, I like my privacy.

 

[Tom 1]

Ok. The NYTs and WashPo pieces are from April. So they don’t count.

The New Yorker piece is from Feb 7 but makes no mention of the virus escaping a laboratory.

The Ahmari piece from the NY Post was 22 February and tagged by Facebook as “fake news.”

Don't count why? My point is that the coverage over the last few months across what you refer to as the liberal media has been balanced and informative. Those are a few examples, you can easily look up coverage of the various theories regarding the origins of the virus in any of those publications. What you said is 'When asked they always change the subject to “COVID19 is not an engineered bio weapon.”' Where is that from? There were some responses early on that directly addressed the suggestion, featured on Fox news for example, that it was a bioweapon, as here: Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins
And more recently here: U.S. Military Says Coronavirus Likely Occurred Naturally but Not Certain
More recently questions about the issues raised in the NY Post article are addressed more directly, as here: Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory Of Pandemic Emergence

E.g. this interview with a couple of specialists -

'BRUMFIEL: Here's the thing. Back in the lab, they actually work with dead virus. They actually inactivate the virus. They kill it and just study its genetic code. And even then, they do that under a biocontainment hood, wearing masks and gloves. They do keep a tiny live sample, but that's kept on ice, and it's almost never taken out of the fridge. And when it is, a lot of times, they can't even get the virus they're looking for to grow, so it doesn't work.

CHANG: OK, so I get how an accident sounds super unlikely, but do we even know if the lab in Wuhan followed these protocols that you're describing right now?

BRUMFIEL: Actually, we do. Until all this went down, that lab was working really closely with U.S. researchers. We know this is how they work. Now, of course, this doesn't completely prove there wasn't an accident. But when you put it all together, the scientists I spoke to say think of it this way. You've got a car wreck 50 feet from a telephone pole. The fender is wrapped around the pole, and you're investigating whether the car was struck by lightning.

CHANG: OK, so what represents the telephone pole in this scenario?

BRUMFIEL: So that's all the other people who interact with bats. I spoke to Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a group that focuses on this kind of work. And he says his team have been in caves when, like, a tour comes through.

PETER DASZAK: We might be there with our hazmat suits on, and tourists will be filing past in their shorts and T-shirt, which is quite bizarre and ironic.

BRUMFIEL: And such as tourists, locals do it too. A province in China - there was a small survey that found nearly 3% of the population had coronavirus antibodies, so a natural crossover really looks most likely here.'

Maybe they are wrong? It may be that the virus escaped from a lab, scientific consensus so far is that a transmission from animals in the wild is more likely.
I have no idea why FB labelled the NY post article as fake, as you can see that isn't what I was responding to. The article is a bit vague and circumstantial maybe but still interesting. Maybe FB need to tweak their algorithms or whatever process they use to flag something as suspect, but FB is a social media site, they aren't in the business of investigating every news story posted so they can hardly be expected to live up to some standard set, say, for a government representative. Given that the White House continually accuses the media of publishing fake news, with no evidence, FB calling the wrong shot is hardly a stand out piece of news.

 

[redleghunter]

Don't count why? My point is that the coverage over the last few months across what you refer to as the liberal media has been balanced and informative. Those are a few examples, you can easily look up coverage of the various theories regarding the origins of the virus in any of those publications. What you said is 'When asked they always change the subject to “COVID19 is not an engineered bio weapon.”' Where is that from? There were some responses early on that directly addressed the suggestion, featured on Fox news for example, that it was a bioweapon, as here: Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins
And more recently here: U.S. Military Says Coronavirus Likely Occurred Naturally but Not Certain
More recently questions about the issues raised in the NY Post article are addressed more directly, as here: Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory Of Pandemic Emergence

E.g. this interview with a couple of specialists -

'BRUMFIEL: Here's the thing. Back in the lab, they actually work with dead virus. They actually inactivate the virus. They kill it and just study its genetic code. And even then, they do that under a biocontainment hood, wearing masks and gloves. They do keep a tiny live sample, but that's kept on ice, and it's almost never taken out of the fridge. And when it is, a lot of times, they can't even get the virus they're looking for to grow, so it doesn't work.

CHANG: OK, so I get how an accident sounds super unlikely, but do we even know if the lab in Wuhan followed these protocols that you're describing right now?

BRUMFIEL: Actually, we do. Until all this went down, that lab was working really closely with U.S. researchers. We know this is how they work. Now, of course, this doesn't completely prove there wasn't an accident. But when you put it all together, the scientists I spoke to say think of it this way. You've got a car wreck 50 feet from a telephone pole. The fender is wrapped around the pole, and you're investigating whether the car was struck by lightning.

CHANG: OK, so what represents the telephone pole in this scenario?

BRUMFIEL: So that's all the other people who interact with bats. I spoke to Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a group that focuses on this kind of work. And he says his team have been in caves when, like, a tour comes through.

PETER DASZAK: We might be there with our hazmat suits on, and tourists will be filing past in their shorts and T-shirt, which is quite bizarre and ironic.

BRUMFIEL: And such as tourists, locals do it too. A province in China - there was a small survey that found nearly 3% of the population had coronavirus antibodies, so a natural crossover really looks most likely here.'

Maybe they are wrong? It may be that the virus escaped from a lab, scientific consensus so far is that a transmission from animals in the wild is more likely.
I have no idea why FB labelled the NY post article as fake, as you can see that isn't what I was responding to. The article is a bit vague and circumstantial maybe but still interesting. Maybe FB need to tweak their algorithms or whatever process they use to flag something as suspect, but FB is a social media site, they aren't in the business of investigating every news story posted so they can hardly be expected to live up to some standard set, say, for a government representative. Given that the White House continually accuses the media of publishing fake news, with no evidence, FB calling the wrong shot is hardly a stand out piece of news.

I guess you may have missed the OP article.

The sources you originally posted were much later than (6 weeks or more) than the February flagged FB article.

And Tom Cotton never said COVID 19 was a bio weapon.

 

[Tom 1]

The sources you originally posted were much later than (6 weeks or more) than the February flagged FB article.

Do you mean why didn't other sources report the same story earlier?

And Tom Cotton never said COVID 19 was a bio weapon.

The article says that he 'raised the possibility that the virus had originated in a high-security biochemical lab', the fox report linked to in the article says that he linked it to bio-weapons research in China in some earlier comments.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

“You cannot make it up,” tweeted Attkisson. “The ‘fact checker’ Facebook is using to censor a documentary discussing possibility that coronavirus came from Wuhan lab is [a] scientist who worked at Wuhan lab with Chinese communists.”

You know, I feel vindicated. Why? Because I suggested that China was developing a bioweapon back in March, and people on this forum ridiculed me and said it was a conspiracy theory.
Do you believe this Covid-19 is real?"]Do you believe this Covid-19 is real?[/URL]

Of course I had no proof, only suspicion, but people said the thought was ridiculous .

 

[Nathan Arrand]

According to ISN - It's Supernatural Network with Sid Roth - he interviewed Tracey Cook in mid January this year. Tracey Cook said he had a 2 hour dream and God took him to a laboratory in China and told him the virus was being manufactured. Plus other things that are interesting!
I haven't watched ISN much but this Tracey Cook says God speaks to him in dreams. People claim he is a prophet who is told things by God. I was certainly impacted by what he had to say about the virus being manufactured.

 

[Tom 1]

You know, I feel vindicated. Why? Because I suggested that China was developing a bioweapon back in March, and people on this forum ridiculed me and said it was a conspiracy theory.
Do you believe this Covid-19 is real?"]Do you believe this Covid-19 is real?[/URL]

Of course I had no proof, only suspicion, but people said the thought was ridiculous .

To be clear the current theory (one among others about the origins of the virus) is that may have somehow been passed on by a lab worker involved in studying it, not that it was being developed as a bio-weapon. Lab studies across the world have concluded that the virus is not engineered.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

To be clear the current theory (one among others about the origins of the virus) is that may have somehow been passed on by a lab worker involved in studying it, not that it was being developed as a bio-weapon. Lab studies across the world have concluded that the virus is not engineered.

Uhh huh, Keep believing that if it makes you feel better.

 

[Tom 1]

Uhh huh, Keep believing that if it makes you feel better.

What I’m saying is that that is one of the working theories, the same one being suggested in the article from the OP, being looked into by the US govt etc. What are you referring to with the bio weapon idea?

 

[redleghunter]

To be clear the current theory (one among others about the origins of the virus) is that may have somehow been passed on by a lab worker involved in studying it, not that it was being developed as a bio-weapon. Lab studies across the world have concluded that the virus is not engineered.

Correct. Bio labs do research into the viruses and in order to test for vaccines and therapeutic treatments, have to create strains.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

What I’m saying is that that is one of the working theories, the same one being suggested in the article from the OP, being looked into by the US govt etc. What are you referring to with the bio weapon idea?

Did you check out the link I posted in post #11? That explains what I was referring to.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Correct. Bio labs do research into the viruses and in order to test for vaccines and therapeutic treatments, have to create strains.

Have you ever heard of biological warfare?

 

[Tom 1]

Did you check out the link I posted in post #11? That explains what I was referring to.

The link to the other thread? One of the first theories was that it was passed on when a form of the virus adapted to human hosts from another mammal, probably a bat as that is something that is documented as having (at least very probably) happened before. That still is a theory, either via some wild animal bought for food in the market or outside of the city from contact with bats/bat droppings or something of that sort. Where did you read the idea about it being passed on from an escaped dog?

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Where did you read the idea about it being passed on from an escaped dog?

I heard it on the news report that it originated from a dog found in an open market in Whuhan. I never heard that about bats. That it was an escaped dog was mainly my speculation only.