Mark Zuckerberg says he thinks it ‘sucks’ when factual content is falsely labelled misinformation

During an interview on the “Joe Rogan Experience,” Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook restricting a story about Hunter Biden as the 2020 election was ongoing was done as a result FBI warnings on misinformation.

The New York Post reported that leaked emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop showed that Joe Biden, who was vice-president at the time, was assisting Hunter with business deals in Ukraine.

Facebook and Twitter both placed flags on the article and restricted it from being shared, before walking back on this stance after accusations of censorship. Zuckerberg admitted that the decision making in this case “sucks.”

“When something like that turns out to be real, is there regret for not having it evenly distributed and for throttling the distribution of that story?” Rogan asked Zuckerberg, to which Zuckerberg responded: “It turned out after the fact, the fact-checkers looked into it, no one was able to say it was false … I think it sucks, though, in the same way that probably having to go through a criminal trial but being proven innocent in the end sucks.”

“Did [the FBI] specifically say you need to be on guard about that story?” Rogan asked, referring to The Post’s article.

“No, I don’t remember if it was that specifically, but it basically fit the pattern,” Zuckerberg replied. “When we take down something that we’re not supposed to, that’s the worst.”

Zuckerberg went onto tell Rogan that: “The background here is that the FBI came to us – some folks on our team – and was like ‘hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that.’”

A matter of weeks before Joe Biden won the Presidency, Hunter Biden’s laptop became the subject of scrutiny after it was taken in for repair and sensitive emails were found, one of which was for an alleged meeting between a Ukrainian tycoon and then Vice-President Joe Biden. The laptop is also said to contain pornographic content of Hunter Biden with prostitutes, as well as photographs showing Hunter using illegal drugs.