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Comment by _notreallyme_ | Hacker News Reader

Technically, the lab leak hypothesis has not officially been suppresssed as a conspiracy theory. It is has been ranked from "extremely unlikely" to "likely with low confidence".

The reason why you may think it has been suppressed as a conspiracy theory is probably because the people pushing the more for it actually use conspiracy theory patterns. In reaction, report about these loud yeller providing out-of-context, with often ridicule arguments, are dismissed as conspiracy theories.

There is nonetheless some objective reports a lab leak hypotheses and how improving lab security is important to prevent this kind of things either way.

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This feels misleading.

Social media platforms were removing content discussing lab leak theories, and there's enough evidence of government officials colluding with those platforms generally to suspect they could have played a role in that.

That's apart from the scientific community itself, which is what this hearing is ostensibly about.

The problem was that a lot of the 'evidence' of a lab leak and genetic engineering of the virus was contrived, exaggerated misinformation. So if you want to exclude contrived exaggerated deliberate misinformation from your platform, what are you going to do?

Personally I have been from the start saying that a lab leak was possible, on the basis that lab leaks have happened before, and should be investigated. That makes me a lab leak theory supporter as a possibility from day one. I've never got silenced, banned, insulted or de-platformed for saying so. I have no common cause or sympathy for people knowingly spreading lies and contrived 'evidence' to push the lab leak hypothesis though.

It's an unrealistic expectation that no evidence posted online is contrived or exaggerated. Even a cursory examination of "legitimate" channels such as academic work, or communication from governments, will find plenty such examples.

It absolutely was suppressed at the beginning. A small cadre of scientists, in coordination with a high-level government official, published claims they knew or suspected to be unsupported or misleading in a leading medical journal. This is public knowledge now.

Talking Gaslighting...

It always amazes me when people attempt to rewrite history that people lived through just 2 years ago

Lab Leak was absolutely suppressed on all major tech platforms, and calls a xenophobic conspiracy theory by all major news outlets in 2019 and 2020, 2021 it started to shift to "hey maybe that is possible" and now in 2023 is "extremely unlikely" to "likely with low confidence".

It was absolutely suppressed, at both the scientific investigation level and at the public discussion level.

There was gain of function research going on in the same city as the origin of SarsCov2, with the exact same class of virus, and a hand-wavy paper appears claiming only natural origin is reasonable? And the recipients and/or funders of the gain of function research put their names on the paper without declaring conflicts?

> The reason why you may think it has been suppressed as a conspiracy theory is probably because the people pushing the more for it actually use conspiracy theory patterns

Maybe it's because Fauci himself called it a conspiracy theory and tried to suppress the idea from further discussion. I think many would consider that "official", even if not technically.

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