Talk:Hunter Biden laptop controversy

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Gareth Corfield (February 25, 2023). "Wikipedia is not woke, insists founder Jimmy Wales". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved March 16, 2023. Wikipedia was just as infuriated about the laptop allegations as the US Democratic Party's staffers. Its users marked the site's entry about the controversy for deletion, claiming it wasn't notable enough to bother including.
Dan Schneider and Luis Cornelio (January 3, 2025). "Wikipedia's Blacklist: Smearing Trump, Conservatives, And The GOP". The Daily Wire. Retrieved January 3, 2025. Yet, Wikipedia's coverage continues to reference the debunked narrative while downplaying the legitimacy of conservative outlets that reported the truth from the outset.

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An introduction summary needed

Now that the hysteria has died down over this story, and it has moved into history, the article needs a introductory summary paragraph that explains what is the crux of the story. At the moment, the article begins by discussing at length what happened, but that doesn't get to the essence of the story, or why it is so meaningful. And what might that be? As I understand it, it was that a scandal which could have influenced the outcome of a US presidential election was aggressively suppressed by a swathe of the media, after the heads US intelligence services issued a press release falsely claiming it was Russian disinformation. In other words, highly placed public servants lied and/or fed the public false information; they were supported in their lying by deep censorship; and everything that was dismissed as wild 'conspiracy theory' was proven to be true. And the outcome was profound damage to public trust of the media and government. Is that not the crux of the story? So beginning the article with X happened, and then Y happened, isn't helpful. I'm no expert on this, and it's of no particular interest to me, but it's very apparent that for a casual reader, the way the article currently begins needs drastic improvement. It's a classic case of a tale where the things that initially happened aren't actually what makes the story important. Begin with a brief summary of the outcome, and then backtrack. MisterWizzy (talk) 03:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Jtasp111 (talk) 02:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, the crux of this story was that a laptop of unknown origin purporting to tie Hunter, and therefore Joe Biden, into something nefarious was "dropped" weeks before the election in a time that we knew that foreign actors were trying to influence the electorate. Suggesting that US intelligence was lying is post hoc analysis that skews the narrative towards a certain POV. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do think someone should add an introduction summary because the start is too long for someone to understand the gist of it Jtasp111 (talk) 02:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Add that Facebook/Twitter received "no comment" from FBI

According to sworn testimony on

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/testimony-reveals-fbi-employees-who-warned-social-media-companies-about-hack

both Facebook and Twitter asked the FBI on Oct 14, 2020 whether the laptop was real, and the FBI responded with "no comment" even though the FBI agents knew the laptop was real. This helps to explain why the social media companies treated the NYP story as potentially Russian "hack and leak". I do not see this information in the current version of the article. Therefore I suggest adding the following sentence after the first sentence of the second paragraph of the "Social media corporations" section:

Both companies asked the FBI on October 14, 2020 whether the laptop was real, and the FBI replied "no comment" even though the FBI agents knew the laptop was real. Swan2024 (talk) 20:53, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The letter from zuckerberg (found here) is also not mentioned. In the letter he says that social media companies like meta were forewarned by the FBI about a Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma. This should be included in the "social media corporations section" as well. 73.23.140.210 (talk) 14:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2025

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected article at Hunter Biden laptop controversy. (edit · history · last · links · protection log)

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In the "Other press outlets" section, add the following information information after the paragraph quoting Joan Donavan "In 2024, Uri Berliner, a senior business editor for NPR, wrote 'During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump.'"

Source : https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust LATrucker (talk) 01:32, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]