Shellenberger calls out Facebook for censorship

This morning, Mike Shellenberger, following up on his Wuhan Lab Leak exposé, called out Facebook for their continued censorship policies.

Shellenberger on counteroffensive

Shellenberger released a nine-tweet thread at 9:30 a.m. EDT (6:30 a.m. PDT) today (June 14).

For his first example, he cited this story in the New York Post dated April 17, 2020. They in turn linked to their original editorial – dated February 23, 2020 – casting doubt on China’s coronavirus origin story. “Don’t buy China’s story,” said the headline. The story was, of course, that a hapless Wuhan resident bought a bat in a Wuhan wet market, too it home with him, made soup out of it, ate it, sickened, died, and spread what became SARS-CoV-2 to friends and relatives. They in turn spread it, through several levels, to the rest of the world. Instead, wrote Stephen W. Mosher, “the coronavirus may have leaked from a lab.” He cited the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) – the only Bio-safety Level Four (BSL-4) laboratory in all of China. (The Wuhan exposé indicated WIV were using BSL-2, not BSL-4, precautions while doing gain-of-function research on bat viruses.)

Facebook labeled that editorial “false information.” For this they relied on a fact-checker, not part of Facebook, but not exactly independent, either. According to the Post, Danielle E. Anderson, Ph.D., had done some experimental work at WIV. She painted a glowing picture of the Institute’s “strict control and containment measures,” measures WIV clearly did not follow.

Other examples

Shellenberger wasn’t done. He blamed Facebook and Twitter for the censorship of the Hunter Biden Laptop Story, subject of the first Twitter Files. Then he blamed Facebook for censoring information about the Nord Stream Pipeline explosion – and who blew it up.

He also shared a story of Facebook’s censorship of a thread he dropped in July 2020, casting doubt on the accusation that human beings are causing “mass extinction” of several species.

Reaction to the thread contained one negative response. Other responses thus far have been positive.