The Far Right’s Newest, Dumbest Trick to Spread Misinformation on X
Reading Time: 3 minutesWhy This Bizarre New Trend on Twitter Is Popular With Right-Wing Influencers, When a guy you know texts you, it has to be real., Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk: Inside the far right’s newest trick to spread misinformation on Hurricane Helene and FEMA.
Charlie Kirk seemed outraged. Flooding from Hurricane Helene had ravaged Asheville, North Carolina, and the surrounding area, leaving at least 72 people in Buncombe County dead. But what appeared to most upset the right-wing influencer was a text message he had received, supposedly from an unnamed acquaintance, that alleged that Federal Emergency Management Agency workers were taking a laissez-faire attitude on disaster relief.
‘Charlie—my sources in [western North Carolina] tell me that personnel from FEMA are being housed at one of the nicest hotels and they work only until 5 pm,’ read the alleged text, which Kirk tweeted Friday to his 3.5 million followers on X. ‘And they will not work weekends. My folks are being told if they don’t contact them by 5 pm today, they will have to wait until Monday.’
‘Is this true @FEMA?’ Kirk added. ‘Americans are dying but FEMA workers are treating their job like it’s a 9-5 government clock punching gig?!?’
MediaDownloader reached out to FEMA, which has been responding to a deluge of conspiracy theories from former President Donald Trump and others in recent days about these claims. The agency has not yet gotten back to us, but it’s a bit busy. Or we could just trust some guy texting Charlie Kirk.
This tweet format has become conspicuously popular on the redpilled internet. The formula is simple: 1) Post a screenshot of a supposedly genuine text message, 2) express outrage, 3) ask if it’s true without really caring whether it is, and 4) do no further investigation into the matter. It’s a newfangled incarnation of a classic, the chain email. Pass it along or else no one will know the ‘truth.’
Elon Musk is a fan of the format and has been tweeting incessantly about FEMA over the past week. ‘Just received this note from a SpaceX engineer helping on the ground in North Carolina,’ Musk posted Friday. The alleged note, which doesn’t include even a screenshot of a text or email, says that FEMA is blocking shipments into Asheville, seizing goods, and claiming them as its own.
‘It’s very real and scary how much they have taken control to stop people helping,’ the engineer supposedly said. ‘We are blocked now on the shipments of new starlinks coming in until we get an escort from the fire dept. but that may not be enough.’
The allegation: FEMA is preventing Elon Musk’s Starlink systems from helping people gain internet access. On its website, the agency notes that rumors abound about its seizing supplies and turning away donations: ‘FEMA does not take donations and/or food from survivors or voluntary organizations. Donations of food, water, or other goods are handled by voluntary agencies who specialize in storing, sorting, cleaning, and distributing donated items.’
This Twitter outrage format is also being used to spread election misinformation. Venture capital investor Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, tweeted that an unnamed friend of his in California once found a vacant home with 600 ballots stuffed inside the mailbox. ‘How is this possible?’ Maguire asked. He went on to suggest that antifa might have been registering hundreds of people to vote using a single address. (Why would Democrats need to rig votes in the safe-blue state of California? The mystery continues.)
Right-wing media criticism rests on a unifying idea that journalists lie, make things up, and push narratives regardless of their veracity. In the real world, professional journalists employed at mainstream news outlets are required to verify information. They cannot just accept the text messages of unnamed individuals and proclaim their truth—or credulously ask ‘Is this true?’—as a way of laundering inflammatory bullshit to the masses. To many on the right, reporters are lying, but the random dudes texting Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk are telling the truth.
These mystery text messages from unnamed senders can easily be faked, while journalists are fired, disgraced, and often driven into a different industry for concocting false stories—and rightfully so. But there are no real consequences for the influencers who engage in fearmongering and peddle lies.
Of course, they don’t really care what’s true and what’s not. No one serious about facts would receive a text message of dubious veracity and blast it out to millions to ascertain its accuracy. They don’t care if it’s true—they just want you to think it is.
Ref: slate
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