{"id":499634,"date":"2021-05-12T10:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T14:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=499634"},"modified":"2021-05-12T10:06:03","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T14:06:03","slug":"facebook-fact-checks-scientific-piece-arguing-coronavirus-originated-in-chinese-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/facebook-fact-checks-scientific-piece-arguing-coronavirus-originated-in-chinese-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook \u2018Fact Checks\u2019 Scientific Piece Arguing Coronavirus Originated in Chinese Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffacebook-fact-checks-scientific-piece-arguing-coronavirus-originated-in-chinese-lab%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=499634&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1230938483_736x514.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Facebook is fact-checking posts that claim the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab, a theory gaining traction in the scientific community\u2014particularly after science reporter Nicholas Wade published a <a href=\"https:\/\/nicholaswade.medium.com\/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">piece<\/a> on Medium last week explaining why he believes the lab-leak theory is the most likely explanation.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook is warning users that articles describing evidence for the theory are &#8220;Missing Context&#8221; and is steering them to a 2020 fact-check saying there is little evidence for a non-natural origin of the virus. Wade\u2019s story is accompanied on Facebook by a link to an April 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/healthfeedback.org\/did-the-covid-19-virus-originate-from-a-lab-or-nature-examining-the-evidence-for-different-hypotheses-of-the-novel-coronavirus-origins\/?fbclid=IwAR3gdw4ahqu_PXaIFo06SFBNbyqye2XZxFsQginvWz6qrywjzg--gDgFaYU#End\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fact-check<\/a>. The fact-check, which is riddled with grammatical errors, quotes two academic articles and five scientists on Twitter who believe the theory is false. Reached for comment, a spokesperson directed the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> to Facebook\u2019s COVID <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/help\/230764881494641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">policies<\/a>. Those policies ban content that claims COVID was manufactured or bioengineered.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the latest example of Facebook\u2019s aggressive approach to content moderation. The lab leak hypothesis became a political flashpoint when senior Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers voiced concerns about a lab in Wuhan that worked with coronaviruses. Though mainstream media outlets called the hypothesis a conspiracy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/03\/31\/health\/lab-leak-coronavirus-theory-comic-book-scn\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">theory,<\/a>\u00a0the theory is gaining traction as efforts to pinpoint the virus\u2019s natural origin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/who-coronavirus-wuhan-lab-leak-theory\/2021\/03\/30\/30ecbd1e-915b-11eb-bb49-5cb2a95f4cec_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">founder<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Wade\u2019s Medium <a href=\"https:\/\/nicholaswade.medium.com\/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">piece<\/a> outlining the circumstantial evidence for the lab leak hypothesis received widespread attention when it was posted on the popular blogging platform last week. Wade\u2019s piece temporarily disappeared from the site on Tuesday afternoon, although at press time it had been restored. Medium did not respond to requests for comment. Medium\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/help.medium.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/360045484653\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rules<\/a> on COVID-19 content explicitly ban &#8220;conspiracy claims&#8221; that COVID was &#8220;engineered in a lab.&#8221; They also ban references to COVID as a &#8220;far-reaching conspiracy or cover-up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Facebook acknowledges its practice of limiting the reach of content that it finds objectionable, including content its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/business\/help\/2593586717571940?id=673052479947730\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fact-checkers<\/a> label False or Partly False. Facebook did not respond to requests for comment on whether it artificially limits the reach content it labels as &#8220;Missing Context.&#8221; An examination of accounts that had posted the article showed significantly lower engagement with the story than with other stories posted in the same time period.<\/p>\n<p>In its recent ruling on former president Donald Trump\u2019s ban from the platform, Facebook\u2019s Oversight Board <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/facebook-oversight-board-punts-on-trump-ban-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">endorsed<\/a> the use of downranking to avoid &#8220;amplifying speech&#8221; that doesn\u2019t meet its standards.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists and intelligence agencies are still investigating the origins of the virus. No one has managed to disprove theories saying the virus originated in a Chinese lab, yet companies like Facebook and Medium are attempting to limit debate. Facebook previously <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/facebook-reduces-reach-of-hunter-biden-report-before-fact-checking-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">limited<\/a> the reach of a <em>New York Post <\/em>report on Hunter Biden, which the platform falsely labeled as &#8220;misinformation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Chuck Ross contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook is fact-checking posts that claim the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab, a theory gaining traction in the scientific community\u2014particularly after science reporter Nicholas Wade published a piece on &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2277889,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1230938483_736x514.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Facebook \u2018Fact Checks\u2019 Scientific Piece Arguing Coronavirus Originated in Chinese Lab","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1230938483_736x514.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Facebook \u2018Fact Checks\u2019 Scientific Piece Arguing Coronavirus Originated in Chinese Lab","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}