As I read the article, it doesn't suggest the FBI knew the story about Hunter Biden's laptop was true at the time, so the claim that they were "suppressing true stories," while technically correct, is a disingenuous framing of events.
It seems the FBI didn't order Facebook to suppress that story specifically, rather they warned Facebook generally about misinformation and propaganda, and Facebook (along with everyone else) decided of their own volition to suppress the story about the laptop. A story which, we both admit, was surrounded by a cloud of misinformation regardless of the kernel of truth in the middle. So they weren't even entirely wrong to do so on that account.
You could say that Facebook and the media were caught up in something of a moral panic about disinformation at the time, and overreacted, and I might agree.
And again - this wasn't information about a candidate. As far as I know, the only link to Joe Biden is that Hunter Biden introduced a Russian businessman to him when he was Vice President. That's hardly Watergate.
The content of the laptop is not the point in question. The ability of the FBI and the media to bury a factual story right before an election is the problem.
If the sides had been flipped and the FBI said potentially negative news about Trump was "disinformation" (without proof) I'd be just as concerned.
And take a look at the NYTimes article from Oct 2020. It details the fact the FBI had seen the laptop a year earlier (including a receipt from the Baltimore FBI office and confirmation from the FBI). It knew it wasn't Russian disinformation before the story ever broke.
It seems the FBI didn't order Facebook to suppress that story specifically, rather they warned Facebook generally about misinformation and propaganda, and Facebook (along with everyone else) decided of their own volition to suppress the story about the laptop. A story which, we both admit, was surrounded by a cloud of misinformation regardless of the kernel of truth in the middle. So they weren't even entirely wrong to do so on that account.
You could say that Facebook and the media were caught up in something of a moral panic about disinformation at the time, and overreacted, and I might agree.
And again - this wasn't information about a candidate. As far as I know, the only link to Joe Biden is that Hunter Biden introduced a Russian businessman to him when he was Vice President. That's hardly Watergate.