Snopes CEO and co-owner Chris Richmond told MSNBC Saturday that the federal government and not fact-checkers censored reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election.

The comment response to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg telling Joe Rogan on Friday that Facebook was removing fact-checkers and switching to a community notes system like that used by X (formerly Twitter).

Zuckerberg equated Meta’s fact-checking moderation system to something from George Orwell’s 1984 and said third-party fact-checkers used by the company “were too biased.”

The CEO went on to claim that during the Biden administration, his company’s employees were essentially bullied into censoring memes and factually true statements.

On MSNBC’s Velshi on Saturday morning, Richmond defended his industry, said he viewed community notes systems positively, and said it was the government – and ultimately not fact-checkers – who suppressed reporting about the Hunter Biden laptop.

“Let’s talk about how Mark Zuckerberg is saying, well, the fact-checkers are biased, fact-checkers are causing censorship,” Richmond told network host Ali Velshi. “And we’ve already established that Facebook was one that determine when posts are taken down or not.”

Richmond added:

But let’s look at the most famous example of Facebook censoring content, and that was the Hunter Biden laptop story. And we say, well, it was fact-checkers, right? Who told the whole Zuckerberg to limit the reach of that? No, it was the government. So Facebook complied with the government, and then the fact-checkers get the blame. If Kamala Harris would have won, would he be taking any of these same actions now? No. He complied with what the government wanted then and is complying. What the new administration wants now.

Richmond concluded he looked forward to seeing Meta platforms adopting a “transparent” community notes system that he said needed to coexist with fact-checkers.

In October 2020, The New York Post shared bombshell reports about a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. Those reports were suppressed on Facebook and Twitter.

Only after the election did other media outlets verify the laptop and some of its salacious contents as authentic.

Watch above via MSNBC.

The post Snopes CEO Say Government, Not Fact-Checkers to Blame for Censoring Hunter Biden Story: ‘Who Told Zuckerberg to Limit the Reach?’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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