Stop! (Or, How to Fail at Source-Checking Even If You’re the New York Times)
Before analyzing or sharing information, first verify the source's identity and credibility. A failure to do so led a New York Times columnist to cite a known fake antifa Twitter account as evidence of left-wing attacks.
THE IDEA
Stop! (Or, How to Fail at Source-Checking Even If You’re the New York Times)
On March 7, 2018, an interesting Editors’ Note ran under a column by Bari Weiss, at that time a New York Times columnist: “An earlier version of this essay cited criticism of the commentator Dave Rubin as an example of left-leaning attacks on liberals in the public sphere, and linked to tweets that described him as a fascist. Those tweets came from an account that has been reported to be fake. Therefore the example and the links have been removed.” Weiss’s column was titled “We’re All Fascists Now.” She complained that the far left had been attacking even centrists as fascists. Her point? Antifascism had gone so far that it was doing damage to even progressive causes.
Central to the column was the (soon-to-be-removed) example of Dave Rubin, a political commentator with a popular podcast, who, Bari Weiss pointed out, had been attacked by the antifascist left: “Dave Rubin, a liberal commentator who favors abortion rights, opposes the death penalty and is married to a man, yet is denounced as an ‘Anti-L.G.B.T. fascist’ and a ‘fascist lieutenant’ for criticizing identity politics.”
Wow. As they say, big if true. The left criticizing a gay man as being an anti-LGBT fascist? Clearly an example of political correctness run amok. And Weiss initially provided receipts of sorts, linking the two quoted terms here (“Anti-L.G.B.T. fascist” and “fascist lieutenant”) to comments by an antifascist group, with a significant following, making exactly these sorts of charges. The group was apparently even plotting to shut down (“deplatform”) Rubin’s event!
This is one of the simplest sorts of claims. When we look at this “Official Antifa” account, we don’t have to ask about expertise. No matter whether those running the account are right or wrong in what they believe, they are an authoritative source on their own publicly expressed beliefs. The one real question here is, “Do they represent the left?” as alleged by Weiss.
[Figure 1.1: One of two @OfficialAntifa tweets cited by Weiss]
The screenshots referenced in this excerpt are not reproduced here.
Ah, says someone from the back of the class, “What does it mean to represent the left, and can any single organization truly claim to . . .”
OK, stop. Just stop. Those are good insights. And we can talk about them later. But that’s not what we’re talking about at the moment. Before we get all Philosophy 101 here, let’s answer the simple question: Who runs the @OfficialAntifa account? In other words, do we even know what we’re looking at? Is this what I think it is?
So let’s investigate the source. Ready? You’ve packed a lunch and cleared out your calendar? All set to spend the day investigating? Let’s start by throwing the account name into Google and seeing how reliable sources have described it.
[Figure 1.2: Search results of news articles available in early March 2018 mentioning the @OfficialAntifa Twitter account.]
OK, forget about that packed lunch. We’re done, actually. The authors describe search results available the day Weiss ran her column that identified the account as fake. It’s not related to the left at all. It’s as much an antifa account as The Onion or Clickhole is a news site. Maybe even less so, as the examples cited here of its past behavior seem to indicate it exists not for the purpose of humor but to fool right-wing people into believing it is real, while making outrageous proclamations. Just as they fooled Bari Weiss.
Please notice what we’re not doing here: We’re not asking, “Does this sound like antifa?” We’re not playing the “is it possible to die from Pop Rocks” playground game. We’re not going into long-winded philosophical questions about the relative representativeness of various sectors of liberalism. We’re simply opening another tab and taking a few seconds to make sure we understand what we’re looking at. And we’re doing that before we start thinking about it.
[Figure 1.3: Tweet from a few weeks before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic]
Only this caption is supplied for the final figure; the tweet and its accompanying discussion are absent.
When to use it
Before sharing a news article on social media, take a moment to look up the original source or author.
When you encounter a controversial claim in an article, investigate the cited sources before accepting the argument.
In academic or professional research, always verify the credibility of the sources you cite.
When evaluating a Twitter account or website that seems to represent a group, check how that account is described by reputable news outlets.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Bari Weiss and the Fake Antifa Account
In a 2018 column, New York Times columnist Bari Weiss cited tweets from the @OfficialAntifa account as evidence of left-wing attacks on commentator Dave Rubin. A quick Google search would have revealed that the account was a known fake, not an actual anti-fascist group. Weiss later retracted the example and links after an editor's note.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
How often do you check the source of a claim before believing or sharing it?
What steps can you take to quickly verify the identity of a social media account or website?
Why might even experienced journalists fail to source-check, and what can we learn from that?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Verified How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online (Mike Caulfield, Sam Wineburg)