Hunter’s laptop, Wuhan and more: ‘Disinformation’ and ‘conspiracies’ turn out to be true — again and again
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, New York Post
These days it seems like a conspiracy theorist is just someone who was right, but at an inconveniently early time.
Shortly before the 2020 presidential election, a laptop formerly belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter came to light.
Hunter, not the most reliable of individuals, had left it for repair in a Delaware computer store and never picked it up.
After a while, the unpaid repair bills meant it became the property of the shop.
The computer, as reported by The Post, contained reams of incriminating evidence of bribery, drug use, payoffs from shady foreigners and worse.
This was a tremendous news story, with earthshaking ramifications for the election.
Naturally, therefore, it was important to ensure that nobody heard about it — or, if they did hear of it, that no one believed it.
Dozens of former intelligence officials denounced the laptop story as “Russian disinformation.”
Press outlets refused to report it.
(One newspaper, where I had been a weekly columnist for years, spiked my column about that refusal, causing me to leave and come to The Post.)
Anyone believing the laptop was a worthy story was called a Russian tool, a source of “disinformation,” and a conspiracy theorist.
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Social media companies censored the story.
Twitter, now X, under its old management even blocked direct messages between users that contained a link to the story.
Except that now we know it was all true, and that the actual disinformation came from those retired “civil servants” and the pundit class, who were more interested in protecting Joe Biden and defeating Donald Trump than in the actual truth.
“Disinformation” was a buzzword, but in truth it was also their goal.
Hunter’s laptop is not just genuine, it’s so genuine that a federal special prosecutor is entering it into evidence in Hunter’s trial on weapons law violations.
Chalk another one up for the “conspiracy theorists.” There was in fact a conspiracy — to keep the Hunter story on the down-low until after the election.
Of course, it’s not just allegations about the Bidens that get the “conspiracy theory” dismissal.
When the “Chinese virus” that is now known as COVID-19 appeared in 2020, we were told that it came from a bat sold in a wet market in Wuhan.
Many virology experts doubted that, and suggested that various molecular characteristics showed the virus came from a laboratory, such as the virus research lab located in Wuhan itself.
These suggestions — though later-released emails indicate that most insiders thought them likely true — were publicly dismissed as, you guessed it, “conspiracy theories” and “misinformation.”
“Baseless,” scoffed online “fact checker” Politifact in 2020, denouncing “Facebook posts and tabloids [that] have said that COVID-19 was created in a lab.”
Facebook banned China scholar Steven Mosher from the platform for publishing a Post column that explored the idea the virus had been engineered.
Well, turns out it was.
Anthony Fauci’s former boss Francis Collins, for one, called the lab leak hypothesis “a very destructive conspiracy.”
But when called to testify before Congress — under oath — he admitted that the lab leak hypothesis was “not a conspiracy theory,” but a plausible origin for the disease. Indeed, by all present appearances, it’s the most likely one.
The lab leak story was a dangerous one since the lab in question was getting money from the same US agencies whose employees were doing their best to debunk “conspiracy theories” that turned out to be well-founded.
Heck, even the fictitious Gen. Jack D. Ripper of “Dr. Strangelove,” who infamously worried about the safety America’s water supply, may deserve a second look.
Opposition to water fluoridation has been a hallmark of crackpottery for my whole life.
Except that now we’re told that fluoridated drinking water during pregnancy may raise health risks for babies.
Go figure.
Nowadays the only truly unbelievable conspiracy theory is the one that assures us the people who are running things are honest, and know what they’re doing.
In 2024, nobody can buy that story — and it’s a damn shame.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog.
