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April 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Facebook has finally removed the “fake news” warning it had attached to a New York Post article published earlier this year that suggested that the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan, China biolab.
According to Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and an expert on China, Facebook has yet to offer an apology for the unwarranted “fake news” label the social media giant had pinned to his February 22 op-ed, “Don’t buy China’s story: The coronavirus may have leaked from a lab. ”
“After we raised the alarm, Facebook uncensored that Steve Mosher oped about the origins of the Wuhan virus,” tweeted New York Post opinion editor, Sohrab Ahmari. “But the company didn’t apologize to the NYPost or offer explanation/accountability.”
POSTSCRIPT: After we raised the alarm, Facebook uncensored that Steve Mosher oped about the origins of the Wuhan virus. But the company didn’t apologize to the NYPost or offer any explanation/accountability. https://t.co/E9AhrFS9zz
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) April 18, 2020
The two-month-long drama has cast a spotlight on Facebook’s fact-checking methods and raises serious questions about whether the judgement of its “experts ” is sometimes compromised due to conflicts of interest.
Journalist Sharyl Attkisson previously reported that the lead fact-checker on Mosher’s story, Danielle Anderson, has ties to the Wuhan biolab.
“You cannot make it up,” tweeted Attkisson. “The ‘fact checker’ Facebook is using to censor a documentary discussing possibility that coronavirus came from Wuhan labis [a] scientist who worked at Wuhan lab with Chinese communists.”
You cannot make it up.
The “fact checker” Facebook is using to censor a documentary discussing possibility that corinavirus came from Wuhan lab… is scientist who worked at Wuhan lab with Chinese communists.
Honestly, folks. pic.twitter.com/Tqk155S3DD— Sharyl Attkisson��️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) April 15, 2020
Mosher told LifeSiteNews that Anderson “[c]an’t in any way, shape, or form, be considered to be an independent, objective fact-checker.”
“It’s just absurd. She has long-standing professional ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” continued Mosher, who suggested that she may be naïvely involved in the cover-up.
“This is jaw-dropping stuff: Our article was censored based on the recommendation of a scientist who … collaborates with the Wuhan virology lab,” said Ahmari in a continuing series of tweets.
“Another ‘expert’ who recommended our article be censored by Facebook did so based on her *belief* that ‘any responsible government’ would prevent leaks from virology labs,” he continued. “Oh, good, thanks.”
Another “expert” who recommended our article be censored by Facebook did so based on her *belief* that “any responsible government” would prevent leaks from virology labs. Oh, good, thanks. pic.twitter.com/GI9UnjV5RQ
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) April 18, 2020
“There is a hermetically sealed bubble of elite academe, prestige liberal media and Silicon Valley nouveaux riches, impenetrably convinced of their absolute moral and intellectual rectitude,” Ahmari declared in another tweet.
“And they want to control — and do control — what you can read and think,” he concluded. “Dystopia.”
There is a hermetically sealed bubble of elite academe, prestige liberal media and Silicon Valley nouveaux riches, impenetrably convinced of their absolute moral and intellectual rectitude. And they want to control — and do control — what you can read and think.
Dystopia.
— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) April 18, 2020
After Facebook dropped the “false information” warning from Mosher’s article, fact-checker Anderson didn’t apologize. She doubled down on her criticism.
“It is difficult to respond to this article because it is infuriating on a personal and professional level,” confided Anderson in an April 21 update, betraying any pretense that her fact-checking contribution was offered as a detached third-party observer.
“This article contains lots of circumstantial evidence put together in an inflammatory way,” said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the same update.
Mosher suggested that his reliance on circumstantial evidence should come as no surprise since the Chinese Communist Party had put out a directive in early January for the lab to destroy all of its records and samples concerning its coronavirus research.
“So circumstantial evidence is all we have,” said Mosher. “That’s all there will ever be because the real evidence has been destroyed in a cover-up.”
“The cover-up is still in place, and unfortunately it’s being aided and abetted by some Americans who were doing research on this same frontier of human knowledge with their Chinese colleagues,” he asserted.
“The Chinese say, ‘When the water recedes, the rocks appear,’” said Mosher, meaning, “You can cover up your misdeeds for a while, but eventually the truth appears.”
“The truth is going to come out about this … and the people who are aiding this communist cover story are going to see their reputations sink,” he added.