An appearance by Mark Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan's podcast last week stoked controversy after the Meta CEO admitted that Facebook limited the bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election because the FBI had warned about "Russian propaganda."
After the release of the episode on Thursday, the FBI said it "routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats."
In a statement released to FOX Business, the agency said it has provided companies with "foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors."
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"The FBI will continue to work closely with federal, state, local, and private sector partners to keep the public informed of potential threats, but the FBI cannot ask, or direct, companies to take action on information received," the agency said.
Meta said later Friday night that nothing about the Hunter Biden laptop story was new.
"The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference - nothing specific about Hunter Biden," the company said.
In the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election, both Big Tech and the liberal media suppressed the New York Post's reporting that shed light on the shady foreign business dealings of the son of then-candidate Joe Biden.
Both Zuckerberg and then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey expressed regret for their actions limiting the distribution of the Post's reporting and several news organizations including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Politico have since verified the authenticity of the laptop.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., revealed this week in a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz that whistleblowers allege FBI officials told agents not to investigate Hunter Biden's laptop for months over concerns it would impact the 2020 election.
According to Johnson, "individuals with knowledge" of the Hunter Biden case told his office that the investigation was intentionally slowed on orders from "local FBI leadership."
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.