It's always been a possibility although other explanations are more likely. I'd be interested in the evidence.

Why are other explanations more likely? I'd be interested in your evidence for that.

citation needed

Genuine question. Why this gaslighting? Have you been living under a rock in 2020? You don't care at all about a source, the only thing you want to to spread confusion.

I never saw lab leak called fake news. I saw it called irrelevant, not important, unlikely, not knowable , but never "fake". Just want to see the source, that's all

Here is a 2020 article calling it a conspiracy theory

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/16/tom-cotto...

Here is a politico article explaining how Facebook won't ban you for talking about it (anymore), since they used to treat it as fake news.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/26/facebook-ban-covid-...?

"Facebook will no longer take down posts claiming that Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured, a company spokesperson told POLITICO on Wednesday, a move that acknowledges the renewed debate about the virus’ origins.[...] The findings have reinvigorated the debate about the so-called Wuhan lab-leak theory, once dismissed as a fringe conspiracy theory"

> Here is a 2020 article calling it a conspiracy theory

> Facebook will no longer take down posts claiming that Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured,

Those *are* fake news. Suggesting covid was explicitly designed, engineered and purposely released by the Chinese government is a conspiracy theory.

The "lab leak" hypothesis is that a natural sample of covid was inadvertently released through shoddy lab practices.

These are not the same thing. However there remains zero evidence for either one.

There were separate things going on which were flagged commonly: various conspiracy theories about bio-weapons or intentional leaks, Trumpian racism of the “king flu” persuasion, general evidence-free speculation that the Chinese government knew about it for a long period of time (claimed early cases as far back as the summer or fall of 2019), and discussing the possibility of a lab leak of a collected sample during analysis.

Sober discussions of the last case were fine: there was tons of that in the scientific literature and it was recognized as a likely scenario along with the wet markets since both are commonly discussed risks. If you came in hot, all hyped up on Fox News talking points, saying it was only as bad as the flu, or babbling about HCQ or Ivermectin, you’d get flagged since it was clearly not a scientific argument or contributing anything of value.