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 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.

  • flicker@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 months ago

    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?

      • howrar
        11·
        3 months ago

        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.

    • howrar
      11·
      3 months ago

      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.

      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.

      Your only defense for all of this is, “I just don’t want people to accuse random people of being racist.”

      I don’t know what you mean by “defense”. I’m restating my main point.

      But you also recognize that hasn’t happened here. So why are you arguing with me?

      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.