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Comment by tdfx | Hacker News Reader

I thought it was astounding that the media wrote this off so quickly and thoroughly. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. As soon as it might be "Russian disinformation", everyone except the craziest far right people immediately stopped wondering about the meaning of "10 points for the big guy". It was right on the cusp of providing some conclusive evidence that Hunter Biden's international antics were part of a family scheme of corruption as opposed to just fishing his last name around for perks. But because the story was essentially buried, it seems we'll never know.

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It wasn't "written off", it was hushed up. It wasn't "as soon as it might be Russian disinformation", it was as soon as it was obvious how damaging it could be to the political objectives of those who pretend "report the news" if people were aware of this news.

If it's not obvious on its own (de)merits, imagine if it had been information that potentially damaging to Trump. Would it have been "written off" at the first suggestion that it might be disinformation or shouted from the rooftops 24/7 every day until the election? That's the difference between reporting it or not based on "disinformation" or not vs. reporting it or not based on whether it would help or hurt the candidate you are campaigning for.

Indeed. It was pretty breathtaking to see it happen so completely and quickly (it had to, the election was fast approaching).

Normally they’d wait for the story to die on its own after a few news cycles.

And your comment about “crazy far right people” is correct and why we shouldn’t censor. The same websites that everyone rails against as “kooky and conspiratorial” (many are!) were the only ones actually reporting on this.

All of the stakeholders involved - CIA, mass media, political parties - have a vested interested in labeling websites as “disinformation” and pushing them out of the mainstream conversation.

Yes, it's now the second very visible example of the censorship model failing to correctly inform people (many examples, but 2 really recent major ones). The lab leak theory being the other egregious example.

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