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The Facebook Files
Confirmed

Zuckerberg Tells Rogan an FBI Warning Preceded the Laptop Throttle

On The Joe Rogan Experience, Mark Zuckerberg said the FBI had warned Facebook to expect a Russian 'dump' of propaganda before the 2020 election. He said Facebook then reduced the distribution of the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story while fact-checkers reviewed it.

Aug 25, 2022
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Whose side it served: Democrats

Reduced the reach of a damaging Biden story in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign.

What the record shows

Zuckerberg said the FBI 'basically came to us' warning of a possible dump similar to 2016 Russian propaganda and told the company to 'be vigilant.' He said that when the Post story appeared, 'the distribution on Facebook was decreased, but people were still allowed to share it,' for what he estimated was 'five or seven days' while its accuracy was assessed. Asked whether the FBI named the laptop story, he said he did not remember 'if it was that specifically,' but that it 'fit the pattern.' He also said of the episode, 'it sucks.' The FBI responded that it 'routinely notifies' companies about potential threats but cannot direct them to act.

In their words

“The distribution on Facebook was decreased, but people were still allowed to share it”— Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO · source
“it basically fit the pattern”— Mark Zuckerberg, Meta CEO · source
The other side

Meta said the FBI's warnings were not specifically about Hunter Biden, and pointed to Zuckerberg's earlier Senate testimony that the FBI never mentioned the story. The decision to demote it was Facebook's own.

Sources

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