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 understand that not everyone has the same context as you, right? It’s fine to say “[she] made an extremely racist post online” if either
a) you’ve read the post and recognize that it is racist, or
b) someone else who has read the post has informed you that it is racist
It is not okay to make that claim if neither of the above hold. I’m assuming you’ve read it, so if you said she made a racist post, then that’s acceptable. I’ve read it too at this point, so I can say the same. I do not want someone who knows nothing about the situation telling me that she made a racist post.
So now you’re saying the reason you’re indignant that someone might have said she was racist… was because they didn’t begin by saying, “I, too, have seen the evidence that is referenced in the article we’re all commenting on?”
No. I don’t expect people to reveal everything they hold in their head that could be relevant to the discussion. That would be ridiculous. I do expect people to be wary of their biases and not make assumptions without adequate evidence.
Protist made a very reasonable response to the article given what they knew, and was clear that they didn’t have enough information to make further judgement.
treadful’s response was saying there also isn’t enough evidence to conclude that she isn’t racist. Many would read that as saying she’s probably racist, so my response is intended to curb that bias.
I’m not accusing anyone of making baseless accusations. I am preemptively drawing attention to a common bias and asking people be aware of it and to avoid it.
The evidence that doesn’t conclude her innocence, was her claiming things like being a member of the LGBTQ community. That doesn’t prove innocence, especially in face of the evidence that Protist was saying they didn’t have enough of, and one assumes that’s either because they don’t want to believe it, or because they chose not to actually read anything they were commenting on. Which, coincidentally, is information you didn’t have because you also must not have read any of the supporting evidence at that point.
I wasn’t referring to any of that. I was referring to you jumping on an entirely third party, Samvega, and attacking them of baseless accusations. Which is where I joined the conversation. So that might tell you where I came from, since you’re so interested in context.
Samvega was not making a baseless accusation. In fact, you’ve reviewed the evidence and even admitted at this point that the lady is in fact probably racist.
Your only defense for all of this is, “I just don’t want people to accuse random people of being racist.” But you also recognize that hasn’t happened here. So why are you arguing with me?
I thought Samvega disagreed with me when I said baseless accusations are bad, but they denied it and refused to elaborate, so I have no idea what that’s all about. They have not made any themselves and I never accused them of such.
I don’t know what you mean by “defense”. I’m restating my main point.
Yes. It’s often better to prevent a Bad Thing than to fix the consequences after Bad Thing has happened. I don’t understand what you’re disagreeing with.
I know why I’m here. It’s because I have gastroenteritis and nothing else to do.
I’m here with a toddler who just learned to walk and wants to hold my hand and do laps up and down the hallway for hours at a time. Cute af, but also mind numbingly boring.
You’re stuck on the toilet I presume? Doesn’t sound pleasant. Hope that gets better for you soon.