Daniel Baldwin, OAN White House Correspondent
UPDATED 10:00 AM PT – Friday, August 26, 2022
Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that the FBI approached Facebook shortly before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke and warned of “Russian propaganda” that would be released in the near future.
“The FBI, I think, basically came to us, some folks on our team and were like ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought that 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,” said Zuckerberg. “So, just be vigilant.”
As a result, when the New York Post released its story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, Facebook intentionally suppressed distribution of the story.
“Distribution on Facebook was decreased, but people were still allowed to share it,” Zuckerberg said. “So, you can still share it. You can still consume it.”
Zuckerberg explained the end result was “fewer people” seeing the article “than would have otherwise.” He says the FBI’s approach to Facebook spurred the company to action.
“We just kind of thought, Hey look, if the FBI, which, you know, I still view as a legitimate institution in this country, it’s a very professional law enforcement,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. “They come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard about something. Then I want to take that seriously.”
However, Zuckerberg admitted the FBI did not specifically tell Facebook the Hunter Biden laptop story was the “Russian propaganda” it was referring to, but he said the story “basically fit the pattern.”
Zuckerberg went to say he regretted Facebook’s involvement when the story was proven to be factually accurate.
“When something like [the Hunter Biden laptop story] turns out to be real, is there regret for not having it evenly distributed,” Rogan asked.
“It sucks,” Zuckerberg responded.
Zuckerberg compared the situation to that of an innocent man going through a trial.
“I think it probably sucks though in the same way that probably having to go through like a criminal trial, but being proven innocent in the end, sucks,” Zuckerberg explained. “Like it still sucks that you had to go through a criminal trial, but at the end, you’re free. So I don’t know what the answer would have been. Don’t do anything, or don’t have any process? I think the process was pretty reasonable. We still let people share it. But, obviously, you don’t want situations like that.”
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