Commonwealth Policy Center

Should the federal government tell private media outlets what stories to suppress? The answer should clearly be no. However, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently shared how the F.B.I. influenced Facebook into suppressing information about the Hunter Biden laptop report. Zuckerberg said, “The background here is that the FBI came to us – some folks on our team – and was like ‘hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that.'” When those entrusted with upholding justice choose to use their power for political ends, we should be concerned. The FBI is supposed to protect the security of elections, not influence them.