Facebook has announced that it has lifted the ban on posts on its platform that claims the COVID-19 virus was man-made.
This comes after US President Joe Biden called on intelligence agencies to “redouble their efforts” into uncovering the coronavirus’s origins. In his statement, Biden said the enquiries would include “specific questions for China.”
The social media giant said in a statement that the reason it was reversing the ban on claims that the COVID-19 was man-made to align with the reignited debate on the virus’s origins.
“In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps,” a Facebook company spokesperson said in a statement.
“We’re continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge.”
Facebook lifts the COVID-19 man-made ban
Theories that the COVID-19 was manufactured in a laboratory in Wuhan China, have been doing the rounds ever since the virus’s lethal and society-changing effects began to be felt on a global scale. Donald Trump was a big promoter of this theory, although (surprise!) he never provided a shred of evidence to back up this claim.
Facebook’s move to reinstate posts of this nature will likely bring a lot of this theory’s proponents back out of the woodwork. It would be remiss not to mention, that these posts are like to get a lot of eyeballs and anyone with even a passing knowledge of how the social media company makes its money knows what this means.
Back in February, Facebook pledged to remove misinformation about vaccines from its platform. A recent report, unfortunately, revealed that its efforts to this left a lot to be desired.
Source: ABC