A couple of days ago Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter to Republicans saying that health officials had pressured Meta to remove COVID misinformation while the vaccine was being rolled out. He now regrets this, though he didn't really say why. Then there's this:
The Zuckerberg letter didn’t stop with details of the well-known crackdown on Covid misinformation. It also reminds the public of the time the Biden administration asked social media companies to slow the spread of a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election.
That's from Vox, and it echoes Truth Social posts from Donald Trump saying "THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED!"
Perhaps you've already noticed the problem with this: in 2020 Trump was president. There was no Biden administration to do any pressuring.
Nor did the Biden campaign do any pressuring. As Zuckerberg has said multiple times, Meta restricted the laptop story solely because they had gotten vague warnings from the FBI (Trump's FBI) that they should be on alert for Russian disinformation. There was never any mention of Hunter Biden.
In fact—as we've all known for years—both social media and the mainstream media reacted skeptically to the laptop story because it seemed like pure ratfuckery and the Trump campaign refused to allow reporters to verify it. Despite this, the Twitter ban lasted only a day and the Meta restriction lasted only a week.
That's all. That's the story.
Fascists are perpetual victims, and they're the ones doing the victimizing.
Same shit, different day.
It's amazing no one has noticed how poorly Trump comes off in his own story of the 2020 election (aka the Big Lie).
https://open.substack.com/pub/fakenous/p/the-big-lie-is-anti-trump?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=9qewo
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/12/2262043/-The-Big-Lie-Is-an-Anti-Trump-Story-Let-s-Mock-Him-for-It
There is something bizarre about the reentrant problem of Musk spreading misinformation about misinformation.
Perhaps he already is on Mars.
I tend to think of Zuckerberg as being a scumbag, but for the record, Washington Post is reporting the Biden administration in fact pressured Facebook in 2021.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/27/meta-zuckerberg-covid-misinformation-jordan-white-house/
Free ivermectin and bleach for all of Trump followers?
I dont think this is in dispute.
The Biden admin asked Facebook to clean up Covid misinformation during the early vaccine rollout that might lead to American deaths.
This is different than the Trump admin advising Facebook to watch out for foreign misinformation campaigns going into the 2020 election.
This post is calling out the obviously wrong claim that the Biden admin demanded Facebook do something to help his campaign going into the 2020 election. There was no Biden admin and there was no pressure from the Biden campaign.
Perhaps I misunderstand, but the charge by Kevon Drum appears to be regarding Musk's charge that the Biden administration pressured Facebook to slow spread of reports on Hunter Biden's laptop prior to the 2020 election.
Not the charge that the Biden administration tried to get Facebook to remove covid-19 posts in 2021.
Since there was no Biden administration in 2020 prior to the 2020 election, Musk's claim is clearly incorrect as stated.
And saying that the covid-19 charge is correct is not itself germane to Kevin's observation.
I notice that the media is repeating Zuck's use of the word "censored" even though the administration took no action against FB, threatened no action against FB, didn't seize their servers, didn't in fact censor FB in any way.
I have to say, the quality of Vox has substantially declined recently, such that I've been tuning them out except for Ian Millhiser.
This is in line with "Clinton and Janet Reno did Ruby Ridge," "Obama was responsible for 9-11," and "Biden failed to stop Covid."
Nothing to see here.
Yeah, I was about to say that: there are lots of conservatives who believe 9-11 happened under Clinton (“Bush Kept Us Safe!!!”) the financial crisis happened under Obama, etc. etc.
The best thing that happened to FDR was that the Great Depression happened for several years of Hoover’s term. Only if it happens in the middle of the term does it ever cling to a Republican (I think Bush is still responsible for government inaction during Hurricane Katrina).
In National review Roosevelt shared the blame for the Great Depression ("it was the war that fixed it"), and that was even in the days when they were still not-far-from-sane.