I've diaried before about the need for and power of grasstweeting, of reaching out to Twitter users who may be receiving and (worse) spreading misinformation about issues of importance such as health care. I've been practicing what I preach, and yesterday I had a small triumph that I wanted to share.
A few days ago, as part of my ongoing search for tweets with the hashtag #hcr, I noted a user called @Lucky12Duck repeatedly spamming Twitter with variations on the following:
Buy Insurance Mandated Fine or Jail Kids? #tcot #tlot #teaparty #sgp #gop Spread The Word Avatar . NYE #itsNotOkay
As some of you may know, this is one of those misreads of earlier language of one of the Senate HCR bills that has become a powerful lie in the hands of the GOP and its supporters (as documented by Media Matters). More to the point, whatever language might have been in earlier bills, the version that was actually passed by the Senate not only lacks that language but specifically states in Section 1501:
WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES- In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
I decided to take on LuckyDuck12's assertion, and tweeted:
@Lucky12Duck Not only are you spamming Twitter about #hcr, but you're lying as well. No prison possibility in either bill passed.
To no surprise, I got the following replya few hours later:
@ProfJonathan You need to re - read the bill! Mandated fine or jail!
Nope, sorry, thanks for playing. My response:
@Lucky12Duck The passed Senate version has NO jail penalty. I've read it; have you?
I heard nothing back for more than 2 days, and figured that was the end of it. Nope--at 1:28 am yesterday, the following hit my Replies column:
@ProfJonathan I stand corrected. Thank you for letting me know! Sec 5000a clearly states no criminal prosecution, liens or levys! #hcr
Because the tweet included the #hcr hashtag, everyone who (like me) follows that also saw @Lucky12Duck's admission.
Will it matter in the overall scheme of things? Most likely not. On the other hand, I have no idea how many people may have seen the last tweet or might no longer get or spread the misinformation from @Lucky12Duck. Who knows? Maybe @Lucky12Duck will think twice even for a second before spreading the next false spew from the GOP noise machine. Okay, probably not, but a guy can dream, right?
More to the point, this small incident shows that even in situations where it seems hopeless, grasstweeting can actually spread some truth in the face of the lies. So what are you waiting for? Go for it! {ProfJonathan}