Did conservative commentator Candace Owens quote a tweet made by Fox News about ivermectin's hidden cost -- that many are suffering long-term bowel and urinary incontinence? No, that's not true: Both of the tweets shown in the screenshot -- the one spoofing Fox News and the response spoofing Candace Owens -- are fake.
The right border of the fake Fox News tweet contains a small tag that indicates it was created for the Reddit forum r/TOTALLYREALTWEETS. Lead Stories was unable to locate the original copy of the fake screenshot on that forum, but it was also posted on r/ToiletPaperUSA when it was marked with a FAKE NEWS tag. The screenshot was also posted on Facebook by the page Turning Points USA on May 13, 2022, with the caption "Owned the libs." The text of the screenshot reads:
Candace Owens
@RealCandaceO
Well, this explains a few things
Fox News
@FoxNews
Ivermectin's hidden cost: New studies show that 68% of those who used ivermectin to treat or prevent Covid are suffering long-term bowel and urinary incontinence
9:02 PM . May 12, 2022
397 Retweets 49 Quote Tweets 836 Likes
8:23 AM . May 13. 2022
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed May 18 19:19:41 2022 UTC)
The Facebook page Turning Points USA includes a link from their Facebook page to reddit.com/r/ToiletPaperUSA and describes its mission:
TurningPointsUSA educates students about the importance of diaper responsibility, and free markets.
This is an obvious parody account modeled after the verified Facebook page of the nonprofit organization Turning Point USA, which describes its mission this way:
We educate students about the importance of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited gov.
The r/TOTALLYREALTWEETS subreddit is described:
A very serious subreddit for screenshots of completely authentic tweets that are 100% really real
Below is a detail showing an enlargement of the inconspicuous r/TOTALLYREALTWEETS label included in the fabricated spoof tweet. Almost all of the satirical tweets posted on that forum do have some form of label but it is not always in the same location.
(Image source: i.imgur.com screenshot detail taken on Wed May 18 19:45:04 2022 UTC)
In a post on r/ToiletPaperUSA the user u/carrorphcarp, who is a moderator in many forums, including r/ToiletPaperUSA and r/TOTALLYREALTWEETS, called attention to the fact that they had flagged the image as FAKE NEWS and made it clear that both elements in the screenshot were "Fake all the way through."
(Image source: Reddit screenshot taken on Wed May 18 19:55:18 2022 UTC)
An advanced search of Twitter did not return any matching results from Fox News.
(Image source: Twitter screenshot taken on Wed May 18 20:19:43 2022 UTC)
