Fact Check: Fox News And Candace Owens Did NOT Tweet About 'Ivermectin's Hidden Cost' -- Screenshot Is Fake

Fact Check

  • by: Sarah Thompson
Fact Check: Fox News And Candace Owens Did NOT Tweet About 'Ivermectin's Hidden Cost' -- Screenshot Is Fake Spoof

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:
TPUSApost.jpg
(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.

totallyreal.jpg

(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."

flairedfake.jpg

(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.

rubberchicken.jpg

(Image source: Twitter screenshot taken on Wed May 18 20:19:43 2022 UTC)

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Lead Stories is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers who are fighting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about the alliance here.


  Sarah Thompson

Sarah Thompson lives with her family and pets on a small farm in Indiana. She founded a Facebook page and a blog called “Exploiting the Niche” in 2017 to help others learn about manipulative tactics and avoid scams on social media. Since then she has collaborated with journalists in the USA, Canada and Australia and since December 2019 she works as a Social Media Authenticity Analyst at Lead Stories.


 

Read more about or contact Sarah Thompson

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