Facebook reverses policy, allows posts suggesting lab origin of COVID-19: Report

WASHINGTON: Social media giant Facebook has lifted its ban on content claiming about the origins of COVID-19, and theories about its possible lab creation, reports said.

"In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps," The Hill stated quoting a Facebook spokesperson.

The representatives of Facebook also said: "We're continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge."

This shift in policy comes after months of targeting content that the social media site deemed misinformation regarding the pandemic.

In December, Facebook announced it would be nixing posts that contained false information about the coronavirus vaccines, it reported further.

Posts containing false claims about "safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects" were added to the list of already banned content, which included more general coronavirus misinformation.

Recently, the theory that coronavirus escaped from a laboratory gained some traction in Washington, resulting in President Joe Biden announcing a ramped-up effort to confirm how the virus originated.

"As part of that report, I have asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China," Biden said in a statement.

"I have also asked that this effort include work by our National Labs and other agencies of our government to augment the Intelligence Community's efforts. And I have asked the Intelligence Community to keep Congress fully apprised of its work."

Meanwhile, the former head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that circumstantial evidence of Covid-19 originating in a lab in China's Wuhan continues to grow as researchers are yet to prove that the virus jumped from an animal to humans, as per a report in The Hill newspaper.

US former state secretary Mike Pompeo also claimed that every piece of evidence points to a leak of coronavirus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). He also said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be held "accountable" for it.

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