On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published emails from Hunter Biden's laptop. Within hours, Twitter banned all links to the story and locked the Post's account. Facebook algorithmically suppressed it. Mark Zuckerberg later admitted on Joe Rogan's podcast that the FBI warned Facebook to 'be on high alert' for Russian disinformation — despite the FBI knowing since 2019 the laptop was genuine. Internal Facebook communications showed executives concerned about how suppression would 'colour' the incoming Biden administration's view of them.
“Big Tech companies are coordinating to suppress a legitimate news story about Hunter Biden's laptop right before the election, and the FBI is behind it despite knowing the laptop is real.”
What they said vs. what the evidence shows
“The images contained in the articles include personal and private information — like email addresses and phone numbers — which violate our rules.”
— Twitter Head of Safety Yoel Roth (at the time) · Oct 2020
SourceFrom “crazy” to confirmed
The Claim Is Made
This is the moment they called it crazy.
When the New York Post published emails from Hunter Biden's laptop on October 14, 2020, it triggered an immediate and coordinated response across social media platforms that would reshape how millions of Americans consumed information weeks before a presidential election.
Within hours of publication, Twitter locked the Post's account and banned users from sharing links to the story. Facebook algorithmically suppressed the article, reducing its distribution by a significant margin. The message from both platforms was consistent: the story was unverified and potentially connected to Russian disinformation efforts. Major news outlets, citing the platforms' restrictions and intelligence community warnings, largely refused to cover it.
The official narrative from tech companies and many media outlets held firm through the election and beyond. They argued they were acting responsibly to prevent the spread of potentially false information during a sensitive political moment. Critics who questioned this suppression were dismissed as conspiracy theorists. The phrase "Trump supporters pushing misinformation" became standard shorthand for anyone who suggested the platforms had overstepped.
But the evidence that emerged later told a different story.
In a 2021 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the FBI had warned his company to "be on high alert" for Russian disinformation around the election. That warning, presented as reasonable caution, became the justification for suppressing the laptop story. What Zuckerberg didn't emphasize was that the FBI had actually known since 2019 that the laptop was genuine. The agency had possessed it, had authenticated materials on it, and had not flagged the Post's story as disinformation.
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Internal Facebook communications revealed through House Judiciary Committee investigations showed executives concerned about how the company's suppression of the story might affect their relationship with an incoming Biden administration. One exchange indicated worry that heavy-handed censorship could negatively "colour" how the new administration viewed them. This suggested the suppression wasn't solely driven by fraud prevention, but also by institutional interests.
The House Judiciary Committee's formal investigation into Twitter's role documented the company's decision-making process. Twitter executives' own communications showed the suppression was treated as an extraordinary measure, unusual even by the company's own standards for controversial political content.
The timeline matters here. The platforms acted swiftly, decisively, and in coordination—whether formally coordinated or operating from shared assumptions about the story remains debatable. What's undeniable is that major social media companies restricted the distribution of a newsworthy story about a presidential candidate's family member, based partly on a warning about foreign disinformation that the warning source knew to be misleading.
This case matters beyond Hunter Biden or the 2020 election. It demonstrates that major platforms possess the power to suppress information during critical moments, that they can do so with plausible deniability by invoking security concerns, and that institutional incentives—including favor with incoming administrations—can influence those decisions. The laptop story wasn't the first time tech companies shaped election information environments, and it won't be the last.
What changed is that we can now point to documented proof that the dismissals were incomplete at best, misleading at worst. That verification should inform how we evaluate future claims about what platforms suppress and why.
Beat the odds
This had a 0.1% chance of leaking — someone talked anyway.
Conspirators
~100Network
Secret kept
1.9 years
Time to 95% exposure
500+ years
