Really? An entire post based on a social media fact check of a liberal New York Times columnist? Yes. Twitter/X's 'community notes' feature isn't perfect or foolproof -- more on that below -- but it can be very effective at keeping people honest, or at least showcasing their dishonesty. Nicholas Kristof published a tweet designed to gin up fear about abortion and overzealous restrictions in a post-Dobbs world. He paints an ominous picture of an interventionist, meddlesome government victimizing a woman for exercising discretion and autonomy over her own body. The tone is, essentially, how could this happen in America? And how can "family values" voters support such crimes against freedom? And, finally, Kristof issues an admonition for his followers to "think about [his story] as you vote." He links to a Washington Post story, which is inaccessible to non-subscribers, including the more than quarter-million freshly-unsubscribed lefties who have recently abandoned the paper in a huff over ownership's decision not to endorse anyone in the presidential race.
As the since-attached 'Community Note' makes clear, basically every claim made and impression left by Kristof was wildly false:
A struggling Nevada mom suffers a miscarriage. Then the police show up and arrest her for manslaughter, and she's sentenced to 2.5-8 years in prison. Only when a pro bono lawyer steps up and appeals does a judge reverse the conviction and set her free to return to her children.…
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) October 29, 2024
1. She smoked Meth while pregnant; (two crimes).
2. Her baby was well past viability; autopsy said 28-32 weeks.
3. She admitted she did it to kill her baby.
4. Law enforcement believes that the baby was born alive and then killed.
5. This was in 2018 before Roe was overturned
The 'victim' in question murdered her viable unborn child, via multiple crimes. Authorities believe the baby was born alive before being killed. She was charged with her crimes four years before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe. This occurred in Nevada, a pro-choice state, and her actions still managed to violate their permissive abortion laws. Per the story Kristof shared: "The abortion laws in Nevada, which have not changed since Roe, allow abortion up to 24 weeks." There's a victim here, alright, and it's not the women, nor is it abortion rights. It's the human who was killed. That Kristof felt the need to offer up this alleged horror story (it is one, just not for the reason he thinks) to scare readers about abortion is revealing. It's reminiscent of the Democrats' go-to allegation that a woman died because of Georgia's abortion limitations, in that it's untrue:
The two women died after seeking chemical abortions, but there is no evidence that the state’s abortion ban is to blame for Thurman’s death or that her doctors faced penalties for treating her...Thurman was approximately nine weeks pregnant with twins when she traveled to a North Carolina abortion clinic, where she was given mifepristone and misoprostol to take at home. Five days after taking the abortion agent misoprostol, which induces contractions to expel the pregnancy tissue, Thurman presented at the emergency room on a stretcher with heavy bleeding...and dropping blood pressure. Thurman waited three hours before being administered antibiotics and more than 20 hours to receive a dilation and curettage, which involves dilating the patient’s cervix and surgically removing the remaining pregnancy tissue by scraping the inside of the uterus. But by that point, her organs had already begun to shut down, and she died on the operating table...The provision of the D&C would not have been illegal under the state’s law. In Thurman’s case, ultrasound confirmed that both of her twins were already deceased by the time she had reached the hospital, according to medical reports. That means that any heartbeat provision in the state law preventing a D&C of viable fetuses would not have applied. ProPublica did not cite any experts blaming the law for the death of Thurman. Anti-abortion doctors and legal experts have said that the law did not prevent her from receiving treatment.
I'll leave you with alleged evidence of Demoratic operatives working behind the scenes to weaponize Twitter's 'Community Notes' feature, in furtherance of partisan objectives and misinformation:
Democrat staffers on the official Harris-Walz volunteer discord server are instructing volunteers to target accounts with community notes on X. pic.twitter.com/KhL6uSpdeI
— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) October 30, 2024
Yesterday’s report documented how the Harris-Walz campaign has seen great success in manipulating Reddit’s algorithm, but that isn’t the only social media site they’re manipulating. The campaign has also been targeting Elon Musk’s X, perhaps the most influential site for political news. One particular goal, according to a user of the Harris-Walz campaign Discord server, is to get campaign volunteers to swarm the site and “block [community notes] we don’t like.” ... Throughout this campaign Harris-Walz official accounts have been remarkable conduits for disinformation and have regularly provided dishonest presentations of the Trump-Vance campaign. The Harris campaign’s X accounts have been so bad that even CNN fact checker Daniel Dale, who has been very harsh on Trump for several years, wrote an entire column highlighting the errors and dishonesty...Despite this, virtually none of the false and misleading tweets from Kamala Harris’ campaign have Community Notes appended to them. One likely explanation for this discrepancy is that the Harris campaign is directing volunteers on its Discord server to vote down Community Notes even when those notes accurately say the campaign is being deceptive.
Imagine if leftists could have exploited the platforms systems to block the fact-check of Kristof's astoinishingly false tweet discussed above. Read the full story at The Federalist here.
