Fake news is starting to get real

As I noted in last week’s post, whoever controls the narrative over the next 97 days will likely control the White House for the next four years (and possibly forever, in the worst-case scenario). That narrative will be defined by whichever side does a better job of causing rumors, innuendo, and falsehoods to flourish. 

Or, as The Platformer’s Casey Newton puts it, ‘Welcome to the Shitpost election.’

Over the past week we’ve seen a number of deep fakes, false rumors, viral jokes, and fictional outrage tied to the presidential contest and/or the culture wars. Not surprisingly, the flaming dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter is at the heart of nearly all of them. 

It’s going to get a lot worse (and possibly more amusing) from here. In the meantime, please allow me to debunk some of the more outrageous ones.

No, Kamala Harris did not post a video where she called herself ‘the ultimate diversity hire’

A doctored video of the Democratic nominee for president used an AI deep fake of her voice to portray her in rather unflattering terms. 

The doctored video, posted by a Xitter user calling himself @MrReaganUSA [1], is clearly labeled parody (though that usually implies humor, something people on that side of the aisle seem incapable of producing). But when Mr. Xitter himself, Elon Musk, shared this video, that label was nowhere to be seen. Nearly 100 million people saw the unlabeled video, which appears to have violated his own network’s policies against sharing synthetic media. 

I wonder if Xitter will suspend his account. 

No, the Paris Olympics did not mock The Last Supper 

I don’t know if you caught the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics (it was tres French) but one part in particular pissed off people of a certain political persuasion: a tableau depicting a Dionysian feast they interpreted as mocking The Last Supper. 

Apparently, any social gathering of 12 or more people where everyone sits on one side of the table is a paean to the Da Vinci masterpiece. Note to true believers: Da Vinci wasn’t actually at the supper, the Bible has no record of the seating arrangements, and it’s reasonable to assume that Jesus was not covered in blue body paint and surrounded by drag queens. [2] 

The ceremony’s organizers apologized anyway, probably because that was the easiest thing to do, but not before they were also hit with this question, from Italian right wing provocateur Antonio Mastantuono (aka @RadioGenoa) [3]:

Per NewsGuard Reality Check, this image of French performer Germain Louvet actually shows a rip in the hose he was wearing, exposing part of his thigh, not his man parts. But if Mastantuono was so deeply disturbed by Louvet’s gobbly-wobblies, why did he share it with his 827,000 Xitter followers with a big green arrow pointing at the alleged pair, just to make sure people didn’t miss it?

I guess he was feeling a bit testy. [4]

No, JD Vance (probably) did not enjoy connubial relations with a sexy divan

The rumor that flamed across the Internet last week about the VP candidate’s hetero-sectional attraction to living room furniture was in fact a joke, originally posted on Xitter by someone using the handle @rickrudescalves. [5] But it was apparently so plausible that it spawned approximately 10,000,000,000 jokes and memes, and became a news story and a goldmine for late night comics. 

The story really went viral after the AP published a fact check refuting the rumors about Vance’s cushion-pushin’ habits, and then removed it from the AP website shortly after it appeared. Thus leading people to wonder, how much does Vance love his La-Z-Boy? [6]

Even the New York City Department of Sanitation got in on the joke.

That’s one way to know your campaign is in the dumpster.

No, Elon Musk did not ban the word ‘weird’ from X 

After Harris supporters launched a weirdly effective online campaign against Trump supporters by calling them a bunch of weirdos, Elon Musk allegedly declared he would punish anyone using that “slur” on his network.

That Tweet is fake, produced by prolific left-wing parody artist @LiamNissan, not to be confused with Irish actor Liam Neeson. (Also, kudos to Nissan for coming up with that ‘Sissy SpaceX’ nickname for Elon. I think that might stick.) Though that Tweet was quickly identified as false, the hashtag #ElonIsWeird became the number one trending topic on Xitter a few hours later.

Yes, Elon Musk did throw a Deez Nuts insult at Gov. Gavin Newsom

No, not those kinds of nuts.

Nota bene: In last week’s post about how to keep your head above water in a sea of mis- and disinformation, I was remiss in not offering a shout out to the News Literacy Project. Helmed by tech journalist emeritus Walt Mossberg and my pal Karen Wickre (an esteemed media personality in her own right), NLP publishes a free weekly newsletter (Get Smart About News) and fake news alerts (RumorGuard) to help us navigate the tsunami of bullshit about to engulf us. Subscribe and tell your friends.

What fake news stories almost had you fooled? Fess up in the comments or email me: [email protected].

[1] Apparently a conservative podcaster named Chris Kohl, who describes himself as a “Straight White Christian Male… who doesn’t believe in petty motivations, envy, hate, resentment, or greed.” Sure, Chris. You keep telling yourself that.

[2] To be fair, that’s not 100 percent clear; in the painting they’re all wearing dresses.

[3] Mastantuono has also been accused of “spreading racist ideas” by Italy’s national police force. Something tells me he and Chris K. would get along just fine.

[4] NewsGuard also noted that the following day there were “23,700 mentions of ‘testicle’ on X, a 1,227 percent increase from the previous day.” I guess people were going balls out that day. 

[5] He has since changed his handle and gone underground, probably to escape an army of angry Barcalounger fanboys. 

[6] There is also no truth to the rumor that Vance has been banned from Ikea.