'You were wrong, Google and Facebook!' Bill Maher blasts Big Tech for censoring searches and posts claiming COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab
Bill Maher has slammed Big Tech for censoring posts and searches relating to the COVID-19 lab leak theory.
The comedian, 65, explicitly referenced Facebook and Google during a panel discussion on his Real Time program Friday night, accusing the companies of deliberately downplaying the possibility that the virus was manmade and escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
'Facebook banned any post for four months about COVID coming from a lab,' Maher blasted.
He continued: 'A Wall Street Journal reporter asked the head of Google's health division - [after he] noticed that they don't do auto-fill searches for 'coronavirus lab leak' the way they do for any other question and the guy said, 'Well, we want to make sure that the search isn't leading people down pathways that we would find not authoritative information.'
'Well, you were wrong, Google and Facebook! We don't know! The reason why we want you is because we're checking on this s**t!'
Speaking on his Real Time program Friday night, Bill Maher has slammed Big Tech for censoring posts and searches relating to the COVID-19 lab leak theory
Maher claimed that the head of Google's health division stated that they wanted searchers to see authoritative information from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
'That's who I'm checking on!' Maher blasted. 'But the WHO has been has been very corrupt about a lot of s**t and the CDC has been wrong about a lot of s**t!'
The comedian claimed that the liberal bias of Big Tech companies is also leading them to censor information about possible COVID treatments.
Maher mentioned YouTube and the recent removal of a video from the platform about the drug ivermectin, which some say is effective in combatting the coronavirus.
'YouTube should not be telling me what I can see about ivermectin. Ivermectin isn't a registered Republican, it's a drug!' Maher stated.
'I don't know if it works or not and a lot of other doctors don't either.'
Many experts theorize that the virus was manmade and escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. However, Big Tech companies initially downplayed that idea, censoring posts and searches
Earlier this year, Maher - who is a Democrat - claimed members of his own party were fearful of claiming COVID leaked from a Chinese lab because they didn't want to appear racist.
However, Maher insisted that it was possible to be critical of China and its government without stoking anti-Asian hate.
'China does bad things,' Maher stated, referencing the imprisonment of Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps.
'Liberals don't want to say anything because [the Chinese are] Asian and [liberals] don't think very clearly about this, so they conflate it with anti-Asian hate crimes here.... One has nothing to do with the other.'
'Facebook banned any post for four months about COVID coming from a lab,' Maher blasted. He is pictured at left with his panel
The lab leak theory was initially dismissed by many in the media and tech communities.
However, last month President Joe Biden ordered intelligence agencies to launch a probe into whether COVID was man-made after all.
Circumstantial evidence has long raised questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers were known to be conducting experiments on bat coronavirus strains similar to the one responsible for COVID-19.
China insisted early and often that the virus did not leak from the lab, claiming that crossover to humans must have occurred at a 'wet market' in Wuhan that sold live animals.
But new evidence, including reports of three workers at the Wuhan lab who fell seriously ill with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019, has forced a sober reassessment among doubters.
Additionally, U.S. experts Dr. Stephen Quay and Richard Muller penned a damning essay saying that science strongly suggests the novel coronavirus was manufactured inside a Chinese laboratory.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, the men say their proof lies in genome sequencing, or analyzing the DNA, of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
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