Facebook reneges ‘conspiracy theory’ ban that COVID-19 is manmade

Michael F. Haverluck (OneNewsNow.com)

With pressure mounting worldwide – including increased bipartisan support on Capitol Hill – to investigate where the pandemic originated, Biden announced his order on Wednesday to the intelligence community to “redouble” efforts to discover where the coronavirus derived.

“[The review will examine] whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident,” the president said, according to Politico.

Following the Democrats’ lead

The same day as the White House announcement, Facebook lifted its ban on the suspicion it had vehemently condemned former President Donald Trump for airing while in office – including its censorship of videos and reports about the virus being created in a lab. The social media giant had indicated that such an idea was merely a conspiracy theory waged by conservatives that was racist in nature targeting the Chinese.

“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,” a Facebook spokesperson emailed in a statement, as reported by Politico. “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.”

However, throughout the pandemic, Facebook fastidiously endeavored to eradicate or disprove anything suggesting that COVID-19 was manmade.

“Facebook announced in February it had expanded the list of misleading health claims that it would remove from its platforms to include those asserting that ‘COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured,’” Politico recounted. “The tech giant has updated its policies against false and misleading coronavirus information, including its running list of debunked claims, over the course of the pandemic in consultation with global health officials.”

In addition, CBN News reported that Facebook, at that time, also included as debunked claims assertions about the ineffectiveness or toxicity of vaccines.

No longer able to ignore the evidence

As more and more circumstantial evidence emerges showing that Trump and Republicans’ assertions about China’s culpability in spreading the manmade virus created in its lab, Democrats and others on the left are essentially being forced to change their tune on the pandemic’s origins in order to try to save face.

“Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the COVID-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory,” The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week. “The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab – a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens – became sick in autumn 2019 ‘with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.’”

Despite Facebook’s turnaround, Twitter and YouTube indicated they had no current intention to change their policies regarding COVID-19 when asked by Politico.

Getting heated in D.C.

During Wednesday’s Senate hearings, U.S. health officials – including those from the National Institute of Health (NIH), which Dr. Anthony Fauci led when allegedly sending money more than a decade ago to the Wuhan lab that was used for gain-of-function research of man-made viruses – were grilled by lawmakers over the lab-leak theory following their testimonies insisting that COVID-19 derived in nature.

“I think the most likely reason – mechanism – by which SARS-CoV-2 arose was a natural process from an animal to a human,” NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins testified, according to CBN News. “[But] we cannot exclude the possibility that this is a lab accident.” 

After Fauci quickly discounted the lab-leak theory, Sen. Marco Rubio (D-Fla.) questioned how he could reject it so hastily.

“I didn’t dismiss anything,” Fauci retorted. “I just said that this is a high likelihood of natural occurrence.”

Subsequently, Sen. Lindsey Graham (D-S.C.) asked Fauci why there is no identified host … if the virus truly came about naturally.

“Have we found any animals carrying COVID-19 that could’ve been the source of the transmission to humans thus far?” Graham asked the beleaguered medical expert.

“Thus far not,” Fauci answered. “If what you’re referring to, Senator, is an intermediate host, we know clearly with SARS-CoV-1 that a bat virus went into a cave, which then transmitted it into the human population with MEARS. It was a bat to a camel to a human. The intermediate host – if there is one – has not yet been found.”

The rekindled controversy also comes after 18 leading scientists publicly demanded last week that a new investigation be conducted to find the true origins of the pandemic that has reportedly killed more than half a million in the U.S. and 3 million globally.

Additionally, the rash conclusion made by the World Health Organization (WHO) – supporting China’s claim that the virus originated naturally – was questioned by the team of scientists in a letter published in the journal Science.

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