FBI responds to claims that the Bureau instructed Facebook to suppress Hunter Biden laptop story

Following Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, in which he said that Facebook’s restricting of a story about Hunter Biden was due to the FBI’s warning of misinformation, the Bureau has hit back at claims that they specifically instructed the platform to hide the story.

The Facebook co-founder appeared on Rogan’s podcast last week where he told Rogan that Facebook suppressed a report from the New York Post about Hunter Biden and his laptop. Zuckerberg said that, at that time, the FBI warned him to be on “high alert” for incoming “Russian propaganda.”

When asked if the FBI “specifically” told him “to be on guard about that story,” Zuckerberg replied: “No, I don’t remember if it was that specifically, but it basically fit the pattern.”

Zuckerberg’s comments caused quite a stir online, with many claiming his words as proof that the FBI was being used to protect Joe Biden, who was running for President at the time.

The Bureau responded to such claims, telling Fox Business that it has provided companies with “foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors.”

“The FBI will continue to work closely with federal, state, local, and private sector partners to keep the public informed of potential threats, but the FBI cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received,” the Bureau said.

Facebook (which is now called Meta) later clarified on Twitter: “The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference – nothing specific about Hunter Biden.”

The New York Post responded to the comments, saying in a Sunday article: “Since our story had nothing to do with Russian disinformation, what made Facebook think it was the ‘dump’ the FBI warned them about? We asked Facebook: ‘Was there mention made in the FBI briefing of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Ukraine or a laptop?’”