At my wits’ end. This diary went up at 1:10 a.m.
Some readers were suspicious at once.
Discussion revealed that the purported news came from a parody website.
It was mistakenly picked up by a non-professional journalist writing for a website (not newspaper) called the Washington News. A DKos diarist picked it up and gave it a plug.
As the facts were questioned and information came in, several people made clarifying comments in the diary.
I KosMailed the diarist, who was not around. I also filed a message with the Help Desk.
The Washington News website must have realized the mistake and has taken its own story down. The former link to it is dead.
The diary, however, is still up and gathering uncritical Recs — more than 80, rising fast and Facebooked over 100 times. Second from top of Rec List. People apparently are pleased with the purported news and not reading the comments or asking themselves if the news, as presented, is even probable.
This is how fake news spreads — albeit no doubt unintentionally in this case.
I don’t want get in trouble by flagging the Tip Jar, but this is not up to the standard of the DKos community.
Suggestions?
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UPDATE: The subject diary has dropped off the Rec list now.
DKos’s elfling placed a caveat at the top of the diary to be sure and read the comments before Reccing.
Still, some people apparently missed that. Some Recs have now been removed, but the Facebook tally is now over 300 and appears to be rising.
DKos policy is to leave such debunked diaries up as a lesson to us all. (h/t to The Octopus).
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UPDATE 2: Diarist has KosMailed, wants to take the story down. (And I have apparently forgotten how, but we’ll figure it out!) So if it is gone, that is why.
Everyone makes mistakes.
I think the DKos community passed the test here.
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UPDATE 3: Diarist (in Hawaii time zone!) has taken the diary down on becoming aware of the error, which was inadvertent.
(Since the erroneous story and its source and are no longer available, will just clarify that the misunderstanding originated with a parody website -- which said the King of the Netherlands had censured tRUMP’s child confiscation policy and threatened prosecution at the Hague. He didn’t.
Reality is so bizarre these days, it can be difficult to tell the snark from actual news, especially with a foreign source.)
Back to more consequential matters, like fate of those children seized at the border.
Thanks, all.