A lie, the saying goes, can be halfway across the world before the truth can put its boots on. This is true, in part, because liars are untethered from the hard work of fact-gathering and libel laws.
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election victory, there is a serious discussion of how fake news circulated on Facebook might have affected the election — and the role Russia may have played in circulating it.
What do these four examples have in common? They’re simple, memorable ideas, they’d be shocking or outrageous if they’d happened (“Did you hear!?”), and it takes quite a lot of work to check the facts — for truth to put its boots on.
READ: How Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook to combat fake news
1. The father of a four-year-old girl died after anti-Trump protesters blocked an ambulance.
This happened, according to an unattributed Facebook post cited by InfoWars, which wasn’t sure when or where this might have happened but posted it anyway. It was clearly worth InfoWars’ time, since it got over 100,000 Facebook shares and over 1,600 mostly outraged comments.
Snopes points out that terrible-thing-happens-after-protesters-block-ambulance is a meme and not real at all. In July, a false report circulated that a girl in Memphis who needed a heart transplant had died after Black Lives Matter protesters blocked her ambulance.
READ: Facebook looking to crack down on so-called ‘fake news’
2. Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in northwest Washington, is the centre of a child sex trafficking ring run by the Clinton campaign.
The New York Times describes the hundreds of death threats against James Alefantis, the restaurant’s 42-year-old owner, that followed rumours on Reddit and shadowy right-wing sites. Alefantis seems to have been targeted because he’s a Democrat, or alternatively because he used to date conservative-commentator-turned-liberal David Brock, the Times reported. (Politifact points out a detail: a version on this right-wing site links out as if to corroborate details of the story, but the link is to an unrelated story.)
WATCH: There’s new criticism for Facebook and its handling of so-called “fake news” as the company promises a renewed effort to weed out misinformation on the site. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is laying-out a plan to fight inaccurate news stories from making it to your Facebook feed. Jericka Duncan is here with the details.
3. The cast of ‘Hamilton’ ‘harassed’ U.S. Vice-President-elect Mike Pence.
This one came straight from Donald Trump:
It’s true that some people at the theatre booed Pence. The cast, however, gave Pence a rather polite speech after the performance, in which they said that “We truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and work on behalf of all of us.” Pence, for his part, said he “wasn’t offended“. In a strange Canadian subplot, Twitter rage responding to Trump’s tweet seized itself on Hamilton Theatre, Inc. (@HamiltonTheatre) in Hamilton, Ont.
4. The U.S. government is banning wood stoves and fireplaces.
You can read all about it at InfoWars.
“Why are the feds banning wood stoves and fireplaces all over the United States … by having the EPA show up at your house and fine you? Because they don’t want you self-sufficient,” Jones tells viewers.
The rumour has been around for years. What actually happened was a lot duller: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed the design rules for newly manufactured wood stoves.
Wood stoves that people already own can blaze in peace: “The rule does not affect existing wood stoves and other wood-burning heaters currently in use in people’s homes,” the EPA explains. You can read more about the issue here.
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