In January 2019, a meme that appeared to be a screenshot of an older post asserting that the real Lone Ranger was a black man named Bass Reeves spread on social media: Above what appeared to be an archival photograph of a black man and the television character the Lone Ranger, a screencaptured Facebook post …
On February 10 2019, NBC managing editor Dafna Linzer shared the following image and caption (subsequently transcribed) on Twitter: The tweet stated that the “stark photo taken this week in Knoxville tells a very different story about the economy,” and it included what appeared to be a caption from a news item: People in need of …
In February 2019, a meme about the 1921 Tulsa race riot was shared to Facebook, racking up tens of thousands of shares in 24 hours: Above what looked to be an archival photograph of Ku Klux Klan members lining a dirt road, and caption (“History we should all know”), it read: May 31st 1921 The …
On February 12 2019, YouTube star Shane Dawson published his second video in his conspiracy series — called, appropriately, “Investigating Conspiracies with Shane Dawson” — and by far the most popular of its three topics was a claim that Chuck E. Cheese’s pizza is “recycled” between customers. (Part two of Dawson’s series can be viewed here.) …
In February 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was among a number of Democratic women wearing all white ensembles for the president’s State of the Union address, and the New York congresswoman’s outfit in particular inspired a number of memes. On Facebook, one iteration (and variations) asserted that Ocasio-Cortez’s look was expensive, heavily implying (or even saying …
Did Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s State of the Union Outfit Cost Thousands of Dollars? Read More »
In early February 2019, a Facebook user shared the meme below, which claims that after Australia went through a government shutdown in 1975 its citizens kicked out the entire legislature and started over: Text overlaid on a photograph of what looked like the inside of a legislative building stated: In 1975 Australia had a government …
Did Australia Fire Its Entire Legislature After a 1975 Government Shutdown? Read More »
Ongoing debate about a January 22 2019 change to abortion law in New York piqued interest in the topic across social media, reviving an old rumor that a long-circulating GIF sbows the American Sign Language translation of the word “abortion.” On February 7 2019, the Facebook page “For America” shared the clip as a video. Various …
On January 23 2019, a Facebook user shared what appeared to be a screenshot of an unlinked Facebook post, alleging that a man named Jordan Lee Grinnell assaulted an unnamed black middle school student: Above three images (a handcuffed man sitting on steps, presumably the same man in an unrelated photograph, and what looked to …
Did a 38-Year-Old White Active Duty Naval Officer Assault a Black Middle School Student? Read More »
On February 7 2019, Facebook user Marcus Rogers shared a video post captioned: “SHOCKING VIDEO of Abortion Doctor GROWLING and Saying He loves Killing Babies. This is just DISGUSTING [emoji] AND YOU KNOW, they don’t want you to see this one! [emoji]: No information about the video, the identity of the individual in the video, …
Shocking Video of ‘Abortion Doctor’ Saying He ‘Loves Killing Babies’? Read More »
On February 6 2019, a Facebook post circulated claiming that “modern c-sections” were invented by midwives in Africa. The post had the hashtag #BlackHistoryMonth, and it said in its entirety: Did you that modern C sections were invented by African women— centuries before they were standard elsewhere? Midwives and surgeons living around Lake Tanganyika and …
Were Modern Caesarean Sections Invented in Africa? Read More »
