Trusted News Initiative.
BBC formed a group "to combat election disinformation" in 2019, along with Reuters, Associated Press, the European Broadcasting Union, CBC, WashPo, NYTimes, Twitter, FB, Google, Microsoft, YouTube and some others. Because that's what people do when they're telling the truth... they gather together to get their stories straight.
In 2020 they announced that they would be helping fight covid disinformation.
An example of "fighting covid disinformation" was backing the pangolin narrative 100% while social media took action against posts about the BSL4 lab:
- AI Overview
Yes, Facebook actively suppressed and penalized posts discussing the Wuhan lab-leak theory in 2020 using third-party fact-checkers, while Twitter did not issue a blanket ban on the theory itself, though it penalized specific accounts. [1, 2, 3]
Facebook
- Content Demotion: Facebook's independent fact-checking partners labeled articles and user posts suggesting COVID-19 came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as "false information". [1, 2]
- Distribution Penalties: Sharing these posts triggered automated warnings, blocked links, or severe drops in algorithmic visibility (functioning similarly to a shadow ban). [1, 2, 3]
- Policy Shift: Facebook officially ended its restriction and lifted the ban on posts claiming COVID-19 was man-made or lab-manufactured in May 2021. [1, 2]
Twitter
- No Blanket Ban: Twitter did not implement a broad platform-wide ban or systematic shadow-ban policy specifically targeting the Wuhan lab-leak theory in 2020.
- Targeted Suspensions: Twitter took action against individual accounts for related infractions; for instance, it permanently suspended Zero Hedge in February 2020, citing violations of rules against targeted harassment and doxxing a Chinese researcher, rather than a ban on the lab theory itself. [1]
- Warning Labels: As 2020 progressed, Twitter chose to apply contextual warning labels to unverified rumors or disputed claims about the virus's origins rather than outright removing or banning the discussion
An example of
"fighting election disinformation" was promoting "the letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials" as proof that the laptop was "Russian disinformation", while people were banned and shadow-banned for posting laptop info, and the NYPost was even banned from social media for saying things that the FBI knew to be true... The FBI had that laptop in their possession for 11 months at that point, so they know it was true, and Hunter has even acknowledged that all the laptop information was correct.
Isn't it just a tad weird that NYTimes was part of a group that kicked NYPost off of social media?
And... Burisma reeked to the high heavens... the Bidens were caught lying about it all multiple times, the prosecutor that was fired by Biden had acquired search warrants against Burisma's CEO, and "the new guy" that Biden bragged about selecting let Burisma's CEO off the hook and got all his assets unfrozen for him. All while Hunter set up phone conferences between Biden and the Burisma board, and Hunter was raking in millions of dollars for working in a country where he didn't speak the language and in a sector that he had no previous experience in.