Publishing houses have editorial standards about what kind of evidence is sufficient to make a claim. This often includes reproducibility of the reporter's work, which is labor intensive. Editors are busy and important, so they delegate it to a dedicated role. Hence "fact checkers." They're research assistants, errand runners, not arbiters of truth.
Facebook has been pressured to own up to its role as a news source and implement the customary editorial standards. Under those standards, audacious claims require airtight sourcing. Speculation is not in the same universe as good enough to attribute responsibility for a worldwide disaster to a specific group of people. And so "the only thing behind this is speculation" rolls up to "false." The intensity of BSL4 containment protocols is just icing.
Publishing houses have editorial standards about what kind of evidence is sufficient to make a claim. This often includes reproducibility of the reporter's work, which is labor intensive. Editors are busy and important, so they delegate it to a dedicated role. Hence "fact checkers." They're research assistants, errand runners, not arbiters of truth.
Facebook has been pressured to own up to its role as a news source and implement the customary editorial standards. Under those standards, audacious claims require airtight sourcing. Speculation is not in the same universe as good enough to attribute responsibility for a worldwide disaster to a specific group of people. And so "the only thing behind this is speculation" rolls up to "false." The intensity of BSL4 containment protocols is just icing.