But before the truth could even get its shoes on, the lie had gone viral. Influencers had already picked up the false story and spread it widely.Remember, if it makes you feel a surge of anger, or a surge of elation at having your biases confirmed, you might want to do a bit more digging into its veracity.
One X user, the pro-Russia, pro-Donald Trump activist Jackson Hinkle, posted a link seen by more than 6.5m people. Several other accounts spread the story to millions more X users – at least 12m in total, according to the site’s metrics.
It was a fake story, on a fake news website, designed to spread widely online, with its origins in a Russia-based disinformation operation BBC Verify first revealed last year - at which point the operation appeared to be trying to undermine Ukraine’s government.
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