This helps explain why so many media outlets, universities, foundations, NGOs, politicians, and corporations all seemed to spontaneously converge on the same narrative about COVID: “It came from a wet market, not a lab leak, and any speculation to the contrary is racist, and racist speech is the equivalent of physical violence, so it must be banned.” This was obviously patently absurd on its face—but it was effective in making people second-guess their own common sense, which told them that the virus probably leaked from the nearby virus-research lab, and think better of voicing their
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