A few days ago, I posted about Donald Trump’s taxes, laying out the arguments for why he absolutely must releasing his income tax returns or pay a steep political price for refusing to do so, and presenting an action plan for how to exert that pressure.
I illustrated the diary with a meme that’s been going around about how Trump criticized Romney in 2012 for not releasing his taxes sooner. First, though, I needed to verify that the facts in the meme were actually correct. A quick Google search for “Donald Trump criticized Romney in 2012 for not releasing his taxes” brought me articles from Mediaite, ThinkProgress, the Huffington Post, and even Breitbart of all places that provided a video with an interview Trump did with Greta Van Susteren on January 19, 2012 that even linked back to Fox News’ original transcript. Here’s an excerpt from the relevant portion:
TRUMP: It's going to be very close. I think Mitt was hurt really very badly by this whole thing with the income tax returns. I believe he should have given them April 1, but I didn't think going into a little bit of detail without going into a lot of detail was positive thing. He'll come back. He has proven to be very resilient guy. He has been hurt a number of times by number of different things, he comes back. He really seems to be very tough and resilient. You have to hand it to him.
And Newt is just great. Every time there is a debate he does so well. You have to give him a lot credit for that.
VAN SUSTEREN: Has Governor Romney been boxed on this tax return thing, and if he called you up tonight and said, Donald what should I do about tax return thing, should I release them or not?
TRUMP: I think first answer would have been good. It should have been delivered a certain way. But April 1st historically is the time that everybody gives them.
VAN SUSTEREN: I hear April 1, I think of April Fool's Day.
TRUMP: OK, make it April 2nd.
— Excerpt from a transcript of a Greta Van Susteren interview with Donald Trump on January 19, 2012.
Bam! Meme verified within moments, and I could use the meme with confidence and added a link back to the Van Susteren interview for anyone who questioned it.
Most of us have a crazy friend or relative who posts unverified bullshit on Facebook. Maybe it would cause too much drama to simply delete them, but’s aggravating to see the constant stuff that’s just plain wrong.
For me, it’s a friend who moved from San Francisco back to the Deep South. He didn’t talk politics when I knew him but now that he’s back home I’ve discovered from his Facebook posts how deeply crazy he is. I was astonished when he announced his fervent support for Newt Gingrich in 2011 and even volunteered for his campaigned, and then was an early fan of Donald Trump in 2015. (Lately he’s been kinda quiet on the pro-Trump front, but still posts a steady stream of anti-Hillary memes.) That’s not exactly what makes him seem crazy, though it doesn’t help. It’s his penchant for passing along the most outlandish conspiracy theories without a second of reflection.
The breaking point for me was when he posted a meme about how Barack and Michelle Obama had their law licenses revoked, and when I posted the Snopes article debunking it, he just said that Snopes had lost all credibility years ago. (Didn’t even try to go into the typical discredited right wing conspiracy theory that George Soros has funded Snopes as a way to attack the right.) For the record, FactCheck.org also debunked the story.
It happens so easily. There are legit parody sites out there like The Onion that people don’t always realize are a parody, even though they’re clearly labeled as such, and someone will create a meme using a quote from one of these articles that goes viral without the context or source. Some sites are not even really parody sites so much as clickbait fake news sites – they may pretend to themselves to be parodies, but they aren’t labeled as such and their stories aren’t clever, humorous, and ultimately often insightful. They’re really about actually tricking people hoping to get outraged traffic. And then there are conspiracy theory sites out there that completely manufacture stories for a political agenda, like the ones that claim that Hillary Clinton is actually forced to use a wheelchair and that one of her Secret Service agents is actually a medical doctor with an EpiPen, or that she wore an earpiece during the NBC Commander-in-Chief Forum and was secretly being fed answers.
Or someone does it as a joke just to see if they can make it go viral. Any jackass can take a photo of a celebrity and slap on a made-up quote to spark feelings, whether it be inspiration or outrage.
And it’s not just right wing conspiracy theories, either. There are plenty of left-wing conspiracy theories out there, too, like memes that attribute fictional quotes to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann — though in fairness, the fake ones so easily blend in with the real ones in some variation of Poe’s Law.
So here’s my plea: before you hit forward or repost on that meme, just take a moment to verify it first. It will probably only take a minute.
- If it came up in your Facebook feed, there’s a chance that it triggered a post from Snopes or Politifact below it.
- If not, just do a quick Google search for a reputable news article if it’s a quote attributed to a political figure or media personality just to confirm that they really did say it. Like I said, anyone can make up some text and slap it next to a photo.
- Or if it’s a “factual” claim, try to see if it’s been either verified or debunked by a reputable fact-checking source like PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, or Snopes. If nothing else, maybe it will come up in a respectable major publication. (Doesn’t guarantee it’s correct, as they’ve been hoodwinked before as well, but at least you made a good faith effort.)
- NOTE: Be careful of clickbait fake parody sites masquerading as legitimate news sites. There are fake news versions of CNN, ABC News, and many other legitimate media companies. Quite a lot of them try to get people to pass them around thinking they’re legit by finding the .com URLs of respectable media companies and then registering the same thing with a com.co alternative. One clue: most of these websites look rather rudimentary, like a site built in the 90s or a barely customized WordPress theme.
- Oh, and if someone you know and love has posted something you feel is wrong, do them the favor of quickly fact-checking it. And if it is has been debunked, you might want to kindly and gently let them know (in private if you wish) with a link to the correct site.
And if you wish, feel free to use the “verify your memes” graphic I made. I wouldn’t mind if that went viral.