The censorship was real. The NYpost was the only traditional media outlet (if you can call it that) who would publish the story.
I remember some saying that the laptop was stolen and therefore they couldn't report on its contents. Most people at CNN and MSNBC said that it was obviously Russian misinformation engineered as an October surprise.
I believe Facebook was preventing people from sharing the NYpost article, I know Twitter was keeping people from sharing and retreating somethings.
It was kind of wild to see. Media institutions more or less formed a consensus that the laptop was not only unnewsworthy, but that if you wanted to talk about it you were a crank who wanted to undermine American Democracy.