On Planting Fake Stories
Tracing Woodgrains1 reveals how he tricked the notorious Libs of TikTok account to publicize a fake story about second graders getting homework on furries. The level of effort that was put into fabricating convincing evidence is almost pathological. The fact that LoTT took the bait is not necessarily all that surprising given the brand of content the account traffics since it’s really intended as online comfort food for its audience. But the account also tries to straddle the line by simultaneously heralding itself as a serious endeavor with direct lines to politicians and thumbs on the scale of policy.
Also interesting is the second order impact. Conservative commentators (apparently dedicated to acting out the concept of “confirmation bias” in real life) like Matt Walsh and James Lindsay seized upon the post to ride their hobby horses about the excesses and degeneracy of the left.
How exactly you feel about LoTT getting pranked is likely predicated on your political affiliations, like everything else in life nowadays. So perhaps it would be most useful to examine a similar but entirely different incident and see how consistent the conclusions are.
There’s a lot to say about James O’Keefe, the conservative activist who made a big entrance with his ACORN sting videos. If you’re interested in a deep dive examination of his work, I highly recommend the supremely excellent 4-part video series by the TimbahOnToast. In sum, his preferred tactic is to heavily edit his video footage to confer as negative of a connotation as possible, as concluded by numerous law enforcement investigations. Likely in response to the scrutiny and criticism his work generates, O’Keefe has stopped releasing raw footage of his stings, with the last transparency release being the NPR one in 2011.
In 2017, Alabama had to have a special election in order to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Jeff Sessions resigning to serve as Trump’s Attorney General. Roy Moore was projected as very likely to beat his Democratic opponent in the deep-red state, until the sex scandal torpedo hit. The Washington Post reported that multiple women accused Roy Moore of either sexual assault or unwanted advances. The story that got the most attention was Leigh Corfman’s, who claimed when she was 14 years old, Moore (32 at the time) drove her around in his truck on two “dates”, where he kissed her, undressed her, and tried to initiate sex.
Give how much conservative cachet was riding behind Moore, it’s fair to say that conservatives would have preferred the allegations be false. Some of Moore’s supporters appear to believe his accusers were paid to make up these lies in order to influence the senate election. Not entirely that different from how Biden supporters reacted to Tara Reade’s allegations.
So this is where O’Keefe comes back on the scene, with his signature sting operation. He tasks one of his employees, Jaime Phillips, to approach the Washington Post with a story entirely made-up. She would tell the reporters that Roy Moore impregnated her in 1992 when she was just 15 years old, and drove her to Mississippi to get an abortion. As they say, big if true.
The sting failed, badly. WaPo reporters were immediately highly suspicious because Phillips kept repeatedly asking them to confirm that her coming forward with her story would “guarantee” Moore loses his election. WaPo didn’t have to dig that much further to see how shoddy Phillips’ operational security was. They found her GoFundMe page where she asked for help to move to NYC saying: “I've accepted a job to work in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceipt of the liberal MSM.”
So they turned the tables on her and ran their own video sting. Phillips met another reporter but again keeps pressing for a “guarantee” that her story would completely take Moore out of the race. They caught the resulting confrontation on video.
But let’s assume it didn’t fail. There are several ways this could have played out. The best case scenario for O’Keefe would have been for WaPo to report Phillips’ allegations. This obviously would have been devastating to WaPo’s credibility. In turn, it would also cast severe doubt on all of Moore’s accusers. After all, if WaPo is credulous enough to fall for something so fabricated, how much due diligence did they really pursue with the other women’s claims? At minimum, it would cast doubt on how the media handles sexual assault allegations, and with some additional evidence, could support that they’re even more gullible when the accused is a Republican.
Would this have been a fair conclusion to make? Yes. The verification process reporters claims they do happens behind closed doors, with no meaningful way to independently verify. So anyone who exposes its shoddiness is providing a public service. And yes, obviously this would cause collateral damage by casting doubt on real allegations, but that would have been WaPo’s fault for sullying the public trust, the same way that Jussie Smollett’s hoax cast doubt on every other hate crime claim. O’Keefe would have been a hero in this scenario. No question.
But there’s a lot of reason to doubt this was ever his goal. There seems to have been little effort put into fleshing out Phillips’ threadbare story, for it to act as a true stress test of WaPo’s fact-checking process, as she immediately balked when WaPo tried to investigate her claims. Instead, the aim here appears to simply bait a WaPo reporter to affirm (on camera) that their reporting is motivated by wanting to see Moore lose, and to provide enough fodder for yet another heavily edited exposé.
If O’Keefe had succeeded with this version of the plan, it would have caused about the same collateral damage as above, but on far more questionable grounds. A journalist claiming their reporting was motivated by political goals should absolutely cast aspersions on their work, but the context should matter. And I would disagree that statement means much when it’s stated while trying to placate a vocally recalcitrant source. But O’Keefe’s audience, already primed to believe the media is prone to credulously repeat whatever could be used to tarnish Republicans, would have been susceptible to accept the connotation intended. The only way this move could possibly be justified is if O’Keefe already knew somehow that the other allegations against Moore were also false.
I think what Trace did falls within the first scenario. It was a public service because it stress-tested the fact-checking process for what is obviously an influential account. Trace even agrees that much of the ridiculousness that LoTT highlights should be highlighted. This isn’t going to stop LoTT from posting about real scenarios, but if the account learns anything from this encounter, it will make future criticism against it far less salient. Regardless of which culture war battlefront you’re on, I have a strong preference for fact-checking and honesty to remain commendable values worth pursuing.
Trace is a good friend and longtime collaborator on multiple fronts. I had nothing to do with this hoax and didn’t find out until after it was perpetuated.