this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
335 points (98.8% liked)

News

22876 readers
4694 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The woman behind an early Facebook post that helped spark baseless rumors about Haitians eating pets told NBC News that she feels for the immigrant community.

The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, told NBC News on Friday.

Lee recently posted on Facebook about a neighbor’s cat that went missing, adding that the neighbor told Lee she thought the cat was the victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbors.

Newsguard, a media watchdog that monitors for misinformation online, found that Lee had been among the first people to publish a post to social media about the rumor, screenshots of which circulated online. The neighbor, Kimberly Newton, said she heard about the attack from a third party, NewsGuard reported.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 67 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Just want to point out that this woman made a mistake and expressed remorse.

The guy who's trying to be pres, deliberately and knowingly stoked this fire for his own benefit.

[–] BambiDiego@lemmy.world 39 points 5 days ago (4 children)

She's not expressing remorse, she's selfishly scared for herself.

Remorse requires accountability, not excuses and projection.

She made a racist, hateful, hearsay statement and now that it might affect her she says she can't be hateful because she's "gay and biracial." That's the definition of dodging accountability.

[–] Laborer3652@reddthat.com 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

This is the kind of outrage response that is ruining society. Everyone gossips and it sounds like she was repeating something she heard elsewhere instead of making it up on the spot.

The blame for the violence against immigrants falls squarely on the shoulders of Dotard Dump for taking a single soundbite (probably out of context) and blasting it to the world and directly ~~inti~~ into the brains of his nazi followers. This lady wasn't orchestrating a disinformation campaign, she was victim to one.

If one person told Adolph one time that "Juden sind schlect" would you seriously blame them for the entire holocaust?

I do think there's a lesson here about the dangers of social media, disinformation, and republicans though.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

"But I'm gay and biracial"

"Oh, I had no idea. Do whatever you want all of the time."

[–] TheLadyAugust@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Out of curiosity, what would accountability look like to you, in this case. Since she's admitted guilt she's likely to be held at least partially responsible for the crimes of others if it's found her racist claim played a part in the crimes motivation. I assume she's likely to lose her job as well, but we'll have to wait and see i suppose.

[–] BambiDiego@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I like your question! To me it starts with a real apology without excuses. Real apologies are generally short and put one in a vulnerable situation, like

"I'm sorry for spreading these lies, they aren't true and I did it from a place of ignorance"

No "I didn't mean to," no "I'm not racist, I'm mixed," and so on.

[–] TheLadyAugust@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I agree with your analysis of her apology. I don't think I've ever considered what makes an apology sound genuine. I've always thought of it as a gut instinct. Thank you!

Do you think that the publicity from this statement, would make a second, more genuine attempt at an apology sound like attention seeking? I wonder what kind actions she could actually take to mitigate some of the damage she's caused. That's a rhetorical question, I think.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

She needs to at least apologize believably.

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 4 points 4 days ago

The cat was also gay and a mixed breed, so unfortunately that cancels out.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

She got caught in the act and is scared for her own self. She’d keep posting this stuff otherwise.