It seriously stresses me out how many people in my community have taken that seriously. In my own family, even. It is indeed one of the many possible indications of someone to whom I don’t want to give my time.
It really speaks to the issue of how many people get their news: secondhand from their family members who read a story (or listened to fox “news”), misunderstood some of it, then injected further biases while getting some of the facts wrong (purposefully or accidentally).
I’m no conspiracist, but… If I were a malicious—perhaps foreign—power and I saw how well that kind of fake news spread and how much staying power it had, despite it being totally far-fetched, and yet easily-verifiable, I’d be absolutely fucking giddy.
It would be the surest sign that I could now spread any bit of disinformation, particularly anything not easily-verifiable, and absolutely tear the country apart.
Probably something about free school lunches or litter boxes.
The fucking litter boxes. Was that meme planted so we could identify which of our friends and neighbors went off the deep end?
It seriously stresses me out how many people in my community have taken that seriously. In my own family, even. It is indeed one of the many possible indications of someone to whom I don’t want to give my time.
Nooooo my cousin’s friend in Memphis told her it was true!
It really speaks to the issue of how many people get their news: secondhand from their family members who read a story (or listened to fox “news”), misunderstood some of it, then injected further biases while getting some of the facts wrong (purposefully or accidentally).
I’m no conspiracist, but… If I were a malicious—perhaps foreign—power and I saw how well that kind of fake news spread and how much staying power it had, despite it being totally far-fetched, and yet easily-verifiable, I’d be absolutely fucking giddy.
It would be the surest sign that I could now spread any bit of disinformation, particularly anything not easily-verifiable, and absolutely tear the country apart.
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