Following a Thursday (August 25) episode of the Joe Rogan Experience where he interviewed Mera CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the FBI released a statement saying it “routinely notifies” private sector companies of potential threats, these notifications, it said, were extended to social media companies.
Zuckerberg’s interview with Rogan ignited a stir after he revealed that the FBI had warned Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp — of potentially polarizing content, leading Facebook to limit stories on the news feed that related to New York Post’s article on Hunter Biden.
The New York Post’s article relayed how the FBI had obtained a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son that likely contained information relating to the federal investigation into Hunter.
As Zuckerberg’s revelation — which noted that they limited the posts before the 2020 Presidential election — seemingly appeared to point to censorship, the FBI issued a response.
“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 FBI said in a statement.
The FBI’s statement appears to point to Russia using Facebook prior to the 2016 Presidential election to post intentionally polarizing content.
Meta also responded to the outcry following the podcast episode, saying in a tweet that Zuckerberg had already made the revelation when he appeared before the Senate nearly two years ago.
Yet, according to reporting by USA Today, Zuckerberg never mentioned Hunter Biden during his appearance before the Senate.