FBI responds to Zuckerberg’s claim on Joe Rogan that Facebook limited Hunter Biden story

The FBI responded on Friday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s claims that the agency warned Facebook about the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020. 

During an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Zuckerberg told the comedian the feds told the social media giant to be vigilant in the face of Russian disinformation campaigns prior to the 2020 presidential election.

Zuckerberg said the FBI did not name the Hunter Biden story specifically but it ‘fit the pattern’ of what the agency had discussed. 

In a statement, the FBI said the agency ‘routinely notifies’ social media companies about potential security threats. 

The press release read in part: ‘The FBI has provided companies with foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors.’

The agency added they cannot ‘ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received.’  

It also read: ‘[The FBI] routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats,’ reports NBC News.

 Meta responded to the FBI’s statement on Twitter saying: ‘The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference-nothing specific about Hunter Biden.’ 

Last Thursday, Zuckerberg explicitly stated: ‘The background here is the FBI basically came to us, some folks on our team, and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert … we thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election.’

He continued: ‘We have it on notice that basically, there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant.’ 

For his part, Zuckerberg told Rogan that he regretted the decision to suppress the story. 

He said: ‘It turned out after the fact — the fact-checkers looked into it, and no one was able to say it was false.’ 

The CEO went on: ‘Right? So basically, it had this period where it was getting less distribution. I think the process was pretty reasonable. You know, we still let people share it.’

In the interview, Zuckerberg also addressed the issue of media censorship and was asked by Rogan how Facebook handles controversial news topics.

Zuckerberg explained how although the platform did not completely block the story like Twitter, it was still pushed down users’ newsfeeds for as long as a week until more information came down that would indicate whether the story was true or not.

 At the time, more than 50 former senior intelligence officials signed a letter claiming the laptop story ‘had all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.’

Zuckerberg attempted to shift attention by repeating how Twitter’s prohibited the sharing of the story and locked the Post’s account.

‘So we took a different path than Twitter. Basically the background here is the FBI, I think basically came to us — some folks on our team and was like, ‘Hey, um, just so you know, like, you should be on high alert. There was the — 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 of — that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant.”

‘So our protocol is different from Twitter’s. What Twitter did is they said ‘You can’t share this at all.’ We didn’t do that,’ Zuckerberg said. ‘If something’s reported to us as potentially, misinformation, important misinformation, we also use this third party fact-checking program, cause we don’t wanna be deciding what’s true and false,’ he continued.

‘I think it was five or seven days when it was basically being determined, whether it was false. The distribution on Facebook was decreased, but people were still allowed to share it. So you could still share it. You could still consume it,’ he said.

Rogan then asked Zuckerberg what he meant when using the terms ‘decreased distribution’ to which he explained how it meant the story would appear lower down on people’s newsfeeds.

Rogan asked the percentage of the decrease in distribution.

‘I don’t know off the top of my head, but it’s meaningful,’ he said. ‘But basically, a lot of people were still able to share it. We got a lot of complaints that that was the case.’

‘We weren’t, sort of, as black and white about it as Twitter. We just kind of thought if the FBI, which I still view as a legitimate institution in this country, it’s a very professional law enforcement. They come to us and tell us that we need to be on guard about something. Then I wanna take that seriously,’ Zuckerberg said.

‘Did they specifically say you need to be on guard about that story?’ Rogan asked.

‘I don’t remember if it was that specifically, but it basically fit the pattern,’ Zuckerberg explained.

But Rogan then pushed further asking about the aftermath of suppressing the story which turned out to be factual.

‘Yeah. I mean, it sucks, it turned out after the fact. The fact-checkers looked into it, no one was able to say it was false, right. So basically it had this period where it was getting less distribution,’ Zuckerberg said.

‘I think it probably, it sucks though, I think in the same way that probably having to go through like a criminal trial, but being proven innocent in the end, sucks. Like it still sucks that you had to go through a criminal trial, but at the end you’re free,’ he added.

‘I don’t know if the answer would’ve 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,’ he explained.

Conservatives both during and after the 2020 presidential election criticized Twitter’s censoring of the article.

Among those who commented on Zuckerberg’s remarks on the Rogan show was Republican Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley.

Sen Grassley tweeted: ‘We now know Facebook censored spread of Hunter Biden laptop story after FBI approached them.’ 

He went on: ‘FBI & Facebook/Big Tech interfered in 2020 election Facebook acted as an arm of govt Both Facebook & FBI should b ashamed of interfering in our electoral process.’ 

GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy added: ‘The FBI colluded with Big Tech to silence news stories weeks before the 2020 election in an attempt to control your access to information.

‘Democrats in Congress have been intentionally ignoring the facts. When Republicans are back in charge, we will hold all of them accountable.’

Ted Cruz called it ‘complete corruption, plain and simple’ and Ron Johnson said: ‘We need whistleblowers to come forward to expose the truth, hold people accountable and restore integrity and credibility to the FBI and federal agencies. We need to get to the bottom of this corruption.’