You likely don’t remember this from last month, and the tweet has since been deleted, but when we wrote about it on Nov. 17, it had already garnered more than 54,000 likes in the space of just 5 hours.
What it was was a photo of a gathering of House members on the White House lawn, with a red “X” marking each member who had been voted out of office in the midterms, with the assumption they were voted out because they supported Obamacare repeal.
It was a great bit of proof of the blue wave that had cleansed the House of all members who had voted to repeal Obamacare, except for the fact that it was entirely inaccurate.
Or to be clear, it’s just flat out inaccurate. https://t.co/NH7xiCbbHq
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) November 17, 2018
Errors in this goofball photo: Jodey Arrington, Ron Estes, Liz Cheney, Michael Burgess, Patrick McHenry, Jason Smith, Bradley Byrne, Markwayne Mullin, Paul Mitchell, Glenn Grothman, Doug Lamborn, Tim Walberg all won reelection. https://t.co/uTxVm0uG9b
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 18, 2018
DeSantis ran for gov. Tom Price went into the Cabinet. Steve Pearce didnt run for the House
This is quite literally insane fake news.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 18, 2018
Amazing. This photo illustration — posted by @nicholaskitchel — is actually more incorrect than correct.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 18, 2018
Snopes, certified fact-checker for Facebook and Google got on the case — but as Peter J. Hasson of the Daily Caller noted this week, the fact-checkers got it wrong too.
Snopes, Fact-Checker For Facebook And Google, Botches Fact Check https://t.co/345mEIQNpR
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) December 7, 2018
Y'all remember how everybody on political Twitter was mocking this wildly inaccurate meme three weeks ago? Apparently Snopes missed the memo https://t.co/345mEIQNpR pic.twitter.com/16G3sg7HhP
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) December 7, 2018
[Former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer Nicholas] Kitchel deleted his tweet and acknowledged that it was inaccurate after being mocked online.
But Snopes fact-checker Bethania Palma, a former writer for liberal website Raw Story, fact-checked the meme three weeks later and claimed it was accurate.
Palma rated it “true” that “The Congressional seats of almost three dozen Republicans who voted to repeal Obamacare were lost to Democrats in 2018” — a different claim than what the picture alleged, much less its “primary” claim.
“In the meme, red ‘X’ marks were drawn through the faces of 33 lawmakers who purportedly were rejected by voters in the 6 November 2018 midterm elections,” Palma wrote.
Both that claim and Palma’s summary of it were inaccurate.
Not everyone in the photo with an “X” over their face was a lawmaker — a fact left out of Palma’s fact-check. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, for example, had an “X” over her face even though she’s not an elected official.
Moreover, many of the lawmakers who did have an “X” over their face won re-election.
After we reached out to Snopes, they stealth-edited their inaccurate fact-check to claim "the persons actually pictured in the accompanying photograph are difficult or impossible to identify" (they aren't) https://t.co/345mEIQNpR
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) December 7, 2018
As of today, Snopes still rates the claim as “True,” explaining, “Although memes are frequently grossly inaccurate, this one got the general idea and numbers correct (even if the persons actually pictured in the accompanying photograph are difficult or impossible to identify).”
It got the general idea correct? Then why did the clown who posted it pull it down? Because so many people pointed out that it wasn’t true, and yes, they could identify the faces.
— David Carter (@MrDavidCarter) December 7, 2018
Snopes is fake news.
— John Hillis (@JohnHillis3) December 7, 2018
Shocker ?
— KristinaM?? (@KristinMartin4) December 7, 2018
these days you have to fact check the fact checkers anyhow
— Nick (@ubervgeek) December 7, 2018
Who woulda though? pic.twitter.com/y1pUXybU9H
— Oz Deplorable⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@14kft) December 7, 2018
Related:
This photo of politicians voted out over trying to repeal Obamacare is powerful except for all the errors https://t.co/D4WMjpLAYy
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 17, 2018
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