Sen. Rubio: "China and Social Media Controlling Our Speech"

On Tuesday's broadcast of Fox News Radio's "Fox Across America", Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) said that social media companies cracking down on the promotion of the lab-leak theory on the origin of COVID-19 is the Chinese controlling what Americans can say and that China controlling American speech is "already happening."

His comments caused me to want to take a closer look. 

Here's some of what's happening.  A look behind the scenes brings clarity to what is already in plain sight.

Be informed, not misled

Host Jimmy Failla asked: "When you saw things like crackdowns on social media  over whether or not we could discuss this Wuhan lab theory, in essence, is this not the Chinese government controlling what we can and can't say in this country from afar?"

Rubio said, "Yeah, absolutely it is. And that's a narrative they continue to push now...I think it's already happening. You can't---there isn't a single movie studio in Hollywood that can produce a Chinese movie---I mean a movie with the Chinese Communist government bad guy in it. Because it won't be distributed in China."

We learned last year just how subservient the NBA is to the Chinese Communist government---even American pro basketball players were singing the praises of the Chinese Communist Party.

Over the past several US presidential administrations, more and more manufacturing has gone to China. They make practically everything we buy from pills to toys.

Donald Trump was a major interruption. We know how that ended.

But is China really controlling our speech?

 Let's take a closer look at some of what is going on behind the scenes. 

Newsweek Magazine carrying the banner. 

This week they noted that although some initially believed that COVID-19 could have been engineered and leaked from the lab, we now know the truth because WHO investigated.

But in an email Newsweek says was "Sent to Dr. Fauci on January 31 last year, Kristian G. Anderson of the Scripps Research Institute told the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director [Dr. Fauci] that some of SARS-CoV-2's features (potentially) looked engineered."

But in the end, Newsweek agrees with China: "Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin---quoting trusted scientists from China, Newsweek concludes "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

So why did the man responsible for steering US government funding to the Wuhan Institution of Virology thank Dr. Fauci for publicly dismissing the theory that coronavirus may have leaked from the lab?

A "personal thank you."

On April 18, Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, sent Fauci an email thanking him for "publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

Remember EcoHealth has been the middle man for Fauci sending money---hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars--- to the Wuhan lab.

The email was part of a 3200-page batch of emails obtained by Buzz Feed News through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

Less than 12 months later, Daszak would be in Wuhan personally leading a World Health Organization (WHO) team charged with investigating the theory of an accidental laboratory leak being behind COVID-19's origination.

Following the "investigation," Daszak told CBS's Lesley Stahl there was "no evidence" to back the theory that a leak led to the virus and the pandemic.

China had silenced the conversation. Following Fauci's absolute, "courageous" statement about its origins, news media and particularly social media took over.

Social Media is doing its part to control speech.

Among the most revealing emails are those from the very wealthy and influential, like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

Zuckerberg emailed Fauci early on thanking him for his "leadership" during the pandemic, and alert him to the rollout of Facebook's coronavirus information hub, which artificially boosted "authoritative" information about the virus.

Zuckerberg requested a video Q&A with Fauci, because "people trust and want to hear from our experts rather than just a bunch agencies and political leaders."

One paragraph of the email was redacted with FOIA exemption code b(4) meaning it contains "trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential."

The entire email is included in this link, but there are a couple of things that caught my attention.

Mark told Tony:

"This isn't public yet, but we're building a Coronavirus information hub that we're going to put at the top of Facebook for everyone (200+ million Americans, 2.5 billion people worldwide) with two goals (1) make sure people can get authoritative information from reliable sources and (2) encourage people to practice social distance and give people ideas for doing this using the internet tools. This will be live within the next 48 hours."

The result, as we all know, would be Facebook and other social media would censor and cancel any speech that did not support the predetermined conclusion that China was not responsible in any way for the virus killing millions of people around the world. 

A second email shows Fauci responding to Zuckerberg, accepting his "terrific" invitation.

In another email dated April 3, 2020, Fauci refers to a conversation with Bill Gates about a "collaborative and hopefully synergistic approach to Covid-19 with Gates charitable foundation."

In one email, Emilio Emini, Gates foundation director, says he is "seriously worried" about Fauci's health, given his busy schedule. Fauci thanks him responding, "I will try to engage as much as I can given my current circumstances."

In another email to Fauci, a guy named Thomas Murray, who describes himself as a "nuclear/aerospace engineer, says, "The news media is reporting that the White House has muzzled you. Is that true? Let me know if I should stay silent or become noisy."

Fauci told him to "please stay silent---I'm not muzzled," explaining that he was even scheduled to be on Fox News. 

You can fill in the few remaining blanks. 

Takeaway

Back in Feb. of 2020, the state-controlled "China Daily" proclaimed that identifying the latest coronavirus as the Wuhan virus or other terms referring to its Chinese origin is "racist, discriminatory and distasteful."

The Global Times which is also controlled by the Communist Party declared that critiques of China's negligence concerning the Wuhan virus are a clear sign of "xenophobia" and "racism" against China.

The reason it was initially called the "Wuhan virus" is because that has been the common practice for years---to identify a virus by where it was first discovered.

The Ebola virus is named because it first appeared in villages near the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Zika virus has a namesake from the Zika forest of Uganda, where the virus originated. Lyme disease got its name for being diagnosed for the first time in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

A year ago the American Council on Science and Health was trying to set the record straight about Wuhan. They put this on their website: "Historically, new infectious diseases are named after places, animals, or people. Today a flu strain is named after the city in which it was first isolated. That's not because microbiologists are racist."

Interestingly, to underscore their point---Singapore, where the majority of the population is ethnically Chinese, was also referring to the virus as the Wuhan virus.

This was never about a virus to the Communist Party. 

When the media and political figures declare that Beijing is right and that the term "Wuhan virus" is "racist," they have not only controlled your free speech, but they have silenced critics of China's authoritarian regime and its gross negligence in handling the virus. And its immoral human rights history.

When's the last time you heard the virus referred to as the "Wuhan virus?"

That's my point.

Thank you, Sen. Rubio.

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful.