"NewsGuard, which gives outlets a rating depending on what it decides is the quality of their reporting, defended its co-founder for claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a hoax."

"This comes after The New York Times admitted that Hunter’s “laptop from hell,” was real."

It has been admitted, and this isn't a surprise really. They knew it was real at the time and they had to wait a while until it was 'forgotten'. However, the internet never forgets.

As they co-ordinated to suppress the story, instead that backfired, created a Streisand Effect as predicted, [0] and here we are.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24704091

Do you think it backfired though? It was irrelevant as a topic in the election. Wasn't that the point of the suppression?

The point is really that suppression does work, fact-checkers are political - the machinery works in tandem to achieve a defined goal.