We just found out that Germany’s intelligence services concluded long ago with 80-95% confidence that covid-19 was cooked up in Fauci’s Wuhan branch.
Now it turns out that MI-6 always knew the truth, too.
Not only did they lie, but the “intelligence” services targeted people telling the truth for censorship, debanking, and reputation-destroying smears.
"It is now beyond reasonable doubt that Covid-19 was engineered in Wuhan Institute of Virology… [China] is now engaged in an information & influence operation (IO) to deflect responsibility….the Journal Nature was used to promulgate the narrative…"https://t.co/LqAoRoYfEm
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) March 16, 2025
Related: How Often Has the New York Times Been ‘Misled?’
Here in 2025 it’s nice that Ms. Tufekci and the Times are acknowledging that they were duped about Covid origin possibilities. But readers have to wonder how upset Timesfolk were to be used in this manner given the outrageous justification Ms. Tufekci offers for those who misled her and her colleagues:
It’s not hardto imagine how the attempt to squelch legitimate debate might have started. Some of the loudest proponents of the lab leak theory weren’t just earnestly making inquiries; they were acting in terrible faith, using the debate over pandemic origins to attack legitimate, beneficial science, to inflame public opinion, to get attention. For scientists and public health officials, circling the wagons and vilifying anyone who dared to dissent might have seemed like a reasonable defense strategy.
Perhaps a few more acknowledgments are in order from the newspaper. In 2020 Times coverage was far too kind to lockdown promoters.
Five years to the day before Ms. Tufekci’s Sunday column, Katie Rogers and Emily Cochrane reported for the Times:
President Trump, under pressure to take more significant steps to slow the spreading coronavirus, recommended on Monday that Americans stop unnecessary travel and avoid bars, restaurants and groups of more than 10 people, as he warned that the outbreak could extend well into the summer.
The national guidelines, which also advise home-schooling and the curtailing of visits to nursing homes and long-term care facilities, are the most robust response so far from the Trump administration. But the guidelines, which officials described as a trial set, are not mandatory and fall short of a national quarantine and internal travel restrictions, which many health officials had urged.
Could Times readers have used some measured assessments of extreme recommendations? “On your next grocery run, don’t forget to sanitize your reusable bags,” was the headline on a Times dispatch from Jill Cowan two days later.
The same day, an opinion piece bore this headline:
Cancel. The. Olympics.
The Times described the author, Jules Boykoff, as “a political scientist who studies the Olympics,” so at least they weren’t pretending he had any relevant expertise.
Ms. Tufekci for her part was a mask enthusiast and by December of 2020 was still panicked enough about the virus to urge the postponement of Christmas gatherings.
But that advice seems downright reasonable compared to the assault on free speech she was advocating in August of 2020. The Times itself profiled her in a piece called “How Zeynep Tufekci Keeps Getting the Big Things Right.” Ben Smith wrote:
The probable answer to a media environment that amplifies false reports and hate speech, she believes, is the return of functional governments, along with the birth of a new framework, however imperfect, that will hold the digital platforms responsible for what they host.
“It’s charmed that I get to do this, it feels good,” she said. “But in the ideal world, people like me are kind of superfluous, and we have these faceless nameless experts and bureaucrats who tell us: This is what you have to do.”
Let’s hope she has another column this Sunday acknowledging more 2020 foolishness.
Good luck with that — It was foolishness all the way down for the Times in 2020.
