A look at what didn’t happen last week
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
CLAIM: Photo shows the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., vandalized, the statue of Abraham Lincoln covered in graffiti and “BLACK + BROWN LIVES MATTER” written on the wall.
THE FACTS: The Lincoln statue and surrounding monument were not vandalized during recent protests, according to a spokesman for the National Mall and Memorial Parks, although some graffiti was left at the steps leading up to the monument. Altered photos showing the monument honoring former President Abraham Lincoln damaged and covered in spray paint began circulating following protests for George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes as he begged for air.
“The media is trying to hide this picture from you,” an Instagram post sharing one manipulated photo said. “Democrats are saying riots and lawlessness is necessary for change.” Mike Litterst, chief of communications for the National Mall and Memorial Parks, said in an email that the photo circulating online was a hoax. “The only vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial was graffiti at the bottom of the steps at street level, far away from the statue,” he said, adding it had been removed already.
The National Mall National Park Service tweeted numerous instances of vandalism to its sites on May 31. One of the photos in the tweet featured showed the steps near the Lincoln Memorial spray painted with the words “y’all not tired yet?” The Associated Press has taken several photos showing both National Park Service police officers and National Guard members watching over the Lincoln statue as protesters demonstrate on the National Mall in front of the memorial. In the photos taken on June 6 and June 7, the Lincoln statue shows no signs of vandalism.
CLAIM: Hitler also defunded the police and installed his own enforcers.
THE FACTS: Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did not defund the police. In fact, the opposite is true. “Let’s just say the Nazis did everything BUT defund the police,” said Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, a historian and history professor at Fairfield University, noting that Nazis made the police one of the chief recipients of state financial support aside from military spending.
The claim began circulating as protesters around the nation called for defunding the police in response to police brutality. The Nazis expanded funding for police, the number of officers and their powers, said Christopher Browning, a Holocaust scholar and retired University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor. “Hitler did not disband or defund the police,” he said in an email. “The Fire Decrees of February 1933 gave the Nazis the power to take over all state governments, which meant also the power to take over each state police.” One post with the false claim suggesting that Hitler defunded police was liked more than 32,000 times on Twitter.
CLAIM: National Public Radio wants people to burn books written by white people.
THE FACTS: On Tuesday, the conservative news website Trending Right Wing published a story with a misleading headline: “NPR Wants People to Burn Books Written By ‘White People.” “National Public Radio wants everyone to burn every book they own written by ‘white people,’” the June 9 story said. “Anyone who reads John Grisham or Danielle Steel is a slave whipping plantation owner in disguise.” A subheadline later in the piece read, “Liberals want to burn it all.” The piece, which accumulated more than 230,000 Facebook views in two days, refers to an NPR story published June 6, titled “Your Bookshelf May Be Part of the Problem.” But the NPR story says nothing about book burning. Instead, it implores white people to examine their bookshelves and see if they are only reading authors that look like them. The story then suggests people expand their reading lists to include more diverse authors and viewpoints. “Reading broadly and with intention is how we counter dehumanization and demand visibility, effectively bridging the gap between what we read and how we might live in a more just and equitable society,” it reads. Trending Right Wing defended its story, telling the AP in an email that the article “caricatures” the NPR piece. “The article makes it quite clear that the ‘burning’ is not literal,” said Christopher Dorsano, a spokesperson for Trending Right Wing.
CLAIM: A tweet from the Obama Foundation featuring a picture of George Floyd went out on May 17, more than a week before his death, suggesting the nonprofit was aware of Floyd well before he died.
THE FACTS: The Obama Foundation’s website simply updated its Twitter card image after Floyd’s death, which changed the preview image for the site when it’s linked to on Twitter. That retroactively changed the image appearing on previous tweets pointing to the site.
About two weeks after Floyd’s death in Minneapolis on May 25, social media users noticed something curious: A tweet from the Obama Foundation on May 17 displayed a picture of a George Floyd poster. “Did you tune in to Barack-Obama’s commencement message last night?” the tweet read. “Here are a few of our favorite watch parties.” Along with the message, it linked to the Obama Foundation’s website. The link displayed an image of a protester holding a Floyd poster with the words “This is America.” Posts about the tweet circulated widely on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube over the weekend. Social media users speculated it proved the nonprofit knew something about George Floyd several days before he died. “How Did the Obama Foundation Tweet a George Floyd Poster on May 17, when he wasn’t Killed until May 25?” read a headline from the Hal Turner Radio Show, a conservative talk show in New Jersey. The story racked up nearly 200,000 views on Facebook over the weekend. But a peek into the code behind the Obama Foundation’s website reveals that the image that originally displayed with the tweet is different than the image that displays now. Any website can designate a Twitter card image to appear in tweets that link to that site. On May 17, tweets pointing to the Obama Foundation site featured a picture of President Barack Obama in graduation robes. On June 8, they featured a picture of a George Floyd poster. On Twitter, when a website updates the image that’s designated to appear in tweets, the image will update on existing tweets that link to that site, in addition to newly created tweets.
CLAIM: Video shows “rioters destroying children’s hospital in Houston.”
THE FACTS: The video does not show people destroying the children’s hospital, according to a spokeswoman with Texas Children’s Hospital. The video was filmed in downtown Houston on May 29. On June 4, the video was posted on YouTube with a description claiming “rioters” attacked a children’s hospital in Houston. The video circulated on Twitter and Facebook on June 6. The video captures a crowd outside a large building in downtown Houston. At one point, some people throw objects at the building’s windows. “RIOTERS DESTROYING CHILDRENS HOSPITAL IN HOUSTON,” one Twitter post falsely stated. The video was viewed more than 300,000 times. The video was then shared to Facebook that same day with those false claims. The Texas Children’s Hospital is not located in that area. A geolocation search confirms the video shows a building near the intersection of Walker and Austin streets. There are parking garages and offices in the area. While there are other children’s hospitals in Houston, the closest one is nearly four miles away from where the unrest was captured on video.