Edward Snowden Reacts To New Report On COVID-19 Lab-Leak Theory: 'Corporations Must Never Again Be Permitted To Police Speech'

Edward Snowden decried “institutional” and “social media corpo” response back in the first half of 2020 regarding the origins of COVID-19 as reports emerged that U.S. intelligence was inclined to believe that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory.

What Happened: The former U.S. intelligence contractor tweeted, “Corporations must never again be permitted to police speech” and shared a Wall Street Journal article saying that a lab leak was the most likely origin of COVID-19.

"The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency that officials wouldn’t name remain undecided between the lab-leak and natural-transmission theories, the people who have read the classified report said."

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 26, 2023

Snowden highlighted an excerpt from the article which stated that the Central Intelligence Agency and an unnamed U.S. agency remain “undecided” between the lab leak and the natural transmission theories.

See Also: Edward Snowden Questions: Did The White House Use $400,000 Missiles To Shoot Down $12 Balloons?

Why It Matters: In January, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, decried the censorship of “often-true content” related to the discouragement of COVID-19 vaccines by Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META).

Musk’s Twitter stopped labeling and removing posts that contained misinformation related to COVID-19 in November.

On Sunday, it was reported that the U.S. Energy Department concluded that a Chinese lab leak was the most likely cause of COVID-19 that led to a worldwide pandemic in 2020.

In 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly concluded with “moderate confidence” that COVID-19 spread from a Chinese lab.

Notably, The National Intelligence Council and four other agencies assess with “low confidence” that the virus came through natural transmission via an infected animal, according to the previous report.

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Photo via Cory Doctorow on Flickr