After Zuckerberg revelation, FBI says it routinely warns social media about 'malign influence'

The FBI said it "routinely notifies" private companies, including social media platforms, of potential threats after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook "decreased" the distribution of the Hunter Biden laptop story right before the 2020 election because of a warning from the FBI.

The FBI's defense comes after Zuckerberg appeared Thursday on the "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast. Host Joe Rogan asked Zuckerberg about how Facebook handled the story first broken by The New York Post involving the questionable contents on the laptop of President Joe Biden's son, Hunter.

Reflecting on Facebook's decision on the story, which broke weeks before the 2020 election, Zuckerberg said the FBI told his company to "be on high alert" and that an information dump similar to the Russian propaganda seen during the 2016 election would happen soon.