‘Budget Breakdown of a 25-Year-Old Who Makes $100,000 a Year and Is Excellent with Money’
An unrealistic CNBC “budget breakdown” circulated in August 2020 — but not for the first time.
Reporting
How COVID-19 Triggered a #SaveTheChildren Child Trafficking Panic
A surge of interest in child trafficking and the restricted #savethechildren hashtag isn’t organic — it was a subset of COVID-19 conspiracy theories in the summer of 2020.
Founder of Abuse Survivors Group Accused of Creating — and ‘Killing’ — Fake Twitter Professor
Twitter users went from mourning “@Sciencing_Bi” to wondering if she was concocted by BethAnn McLaughlin.
Death of ‘Men’s Rights’ Attorney Stokes New Conspiracy Theories
Roy Den Hollander called Judge Esther Salas an “Obama appointed bigot.”
Did WitchTok ‘Baby Witches’ Hex the Moon?
Unpacking a viral TikTok rumor that “baby witches” banded together to “hex” the moon (and “the fae.”)
Academic’s Work Covering COVID-19 Mistakenly Marked as ‘Spam’ by Facebook
Dr. Amber Schmidtke’s newsletter reports on the pandemic’s path through Georgia in 2020.
Videos of Lynching Threat in Monroe County, Indiana Goes Viral on Facebook
Vauhxx Booker uploaded three distressing clips to Facebook after a July 4 2020 incident at Monroe Lake; local authorities say they are investigating.
‘Carol Ann Channels George Floyd’
Self-proclaimed “entity channeler” Carol Ann Collins claimed to “channel” George Floyd — and later deleted much of her internet presence.
Dave Chappelle Releases ‘8:46’ via YouTube, Netflix, Discusses Death of George Floyd and Protests
“This is the streets talking for themselves, they don’t need me right now,” Chappelle said.
The ‘Asymptomatic Carriers’ of COVID-19 Controversy, Explained
When it seemed that the World Health Organization had declared that asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 was a “rare” issue, the claim predictably spread like wildfire — but, as usual, the clarification didn’t.