Edward Snowden Jumps On the COVID-19 Lab-Leak Conspiracy bandwagon

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

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.

Link to tweet

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.

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

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/edward-snowden-reacts-to-new-report-on-covid-19-lab-leak-theory-corporations-must-never-again-be-permitted-to-police-speech/ar-AA17XUvz

[Johnny2X2X]

1. Sigh

Just because we now think it's at least possible it was a lab leak, doesn't mean social media companies weren't right to police things back when there was very little to suggest it was and speculation about it was both dangerous and irresponsbile.

[Hekate]

2. Says the man living in a country where calling the Ukraine-thing a "war" gets you 15 years in gulag

Got any more advice for us about censoring free speech, Ed?

[betsuni]

6. +1

[Cha]

9. TY.. Snowden makes me sick.

[brush]

3. Comrade Eddie emerges and is on the wrong side or fan issue...

as per usual.

Go back to your Putin-provided hideout, Comrade. No one wants to hear from your defector ass.

[emulatorloo]

4. Sure, Russian Asset.

[WarGamer]

5. I wish DEMS controlled the House. I'd like a full blown investigation.

WTF happened there?

Uncover every stone.

[womanofthehills]

24. The Republican House is about to start their investigation

[WarGamer]

25. All they will do is twist the results to blame Biden and Fauci.

Total waste of time.

[JohnSJ]

7. Why would I listen to anything from that jackass?

[gulliver]

8. When piles of dog crap want to feel better about themselves...

...they think of Edward Snowden.

[Cha]

10. lol!

[ecstatic]

11. Snowden is a humongous RW jackass, but we don't know the origin of covid-19

Both theories are still plausible. We may never know due to a lack of cooperation from China. I'm not sure why people on either side are fully invested in any theory at this point. Scientific information "evolves" based on known evidence. It's not wise to fixate on a comment or statement made based on early information and refuse to let go. That's what the rethugs do. We shouldn't be doing it too.

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf

[roamer65]

12. At this point, its origin doesn't matter anymore.

It’s endemic, now.

In April, I’ll get my 2 bivalent booster shot and hope for the best.

[liberal_mama]

14. It's origin matters to me. I lost several family members to this deadly virus (including my dad), so

I want to know the truth of why I am suffering with horrible grief every day without my loved ones. I'm sure everyone who paid a high price and lost loved ones wants to know.

[roamer65]

19. ...

But, I never see China telling the truth on the origins of the virus and I highly suspect they know it.

[Polybius]

16. It matters hugely to me

I'm glad that it's being talked about with credible evidence now.

[Celerity]

18. of course it matters nt

[womanofthehills]

20. Origin matters big time because we have thousands of bio labs

Around the world in most every country working with dangerous pathogens with no world regulations. So easy for this to happen again.

[roamer65]

21. We will never know it for sure.

The CCP has and will make sure of it.

If we push it too far, it may just drive them to start supplying RuZZia with lethal weaponry for the Ukraine war.

[liberal_mama]

13. I thought it was a lab leak right from the beginning, but why are people acting like that's a

conspiracy theory? When you see how incompetent some of these "professionals" like doctors and scientists are, why would it be a conspiracy theory that someone got careless and let loose a virus? I'm sure it wasn't intentional, probably just some distracted or incompetent person screwed up and caused this hell to be unleashed upon the world and kill millions of people.

What I'm curious about is if this virus was tinkered with or was a gain of function experiment.

[womanofthehills]

22. Look at this 2015 research paper - by US & Wujan scientists

Dr Ralph Barik - our main coronavirus expert & main researcher in US at the Univ of NC Bio Lab & Shi Zhengli- top Coronavirus expert in China wrote a research paper together with other scientists which sounds like gain of function to me - but I’m not a scientist so what do I know. Maybe some scientist here on DU can interpret it

A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
Abstract

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV underscores the threat of cross-species transmission events leading to outbreaks in humans. Here we examine the disease potential of a SARS-like virus, SHC014-CoV, which is currently circulating in Chinese horseshoe bat populations. Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis. Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein. On the basis of these findings, we synthetically re-derived an infectious full-length SHC014 recombinant virus and demonstrate robust viral replication both in vitro and in vivo. Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26552008/

[Sympthsical]

26. Because they got too invested in sides early on

And they're still trying to paint discussion of it as guilt by association. "You want to know what happened with Covid? So does Hitler! You're practically Hitler."

And it's ridiculous at this point. President Biden's administration wants to know, too, and is reaching some conclusions. But somehow they just elide right over that one.

I think the problem is, people now have to explain the censorship regime that was imposed over all this by some sectors of government, media, and tech, resulting in doctors and scientists getting excoriated, silenced, and professionally threatened. And they know they don't have a good explanation. So they have to insist wanting to know is a right-wing crazy conspiracy theory.

Otherwise they look terrible for how they behaved (and some continue to behave).

There's no way, after all that, error is going to be admitted. That's a rodeo that's only going to end when the ground is hit.

[UTUSN]

17. I've missed hearing Eddie's feelings about Ukraine.

[roamer65]

23. Smart move, Eddie.

Point the finger at Pootie’s buddy Xi for the origin of the virus while you are sitting within their sphere of influence.

Stay away from high rise balconies, Eddie!