Facebook lifts ban on lab-leak theory

Facebook last week ended a ban on posts suggesting Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured, said Newley Purnell in The Wall Street Journal. In February, the social network included such “lab-leak theories” on “a list of misleading health claims that aren’t allowed” on the platform. But the debate about the origins of the pandemic has deepened in recent weeks, and President Biden ordered a U.S. intelligence inquiry after “a group of 18 prominent scientists called for a deeper investigation into the possibility that a laboratory accident released the virus.” While Facebook has been under pressure to remove misleading content, it has also been accused of applying standards that are “opaque, inconsistent, and unfair.”