The DeSantis campaign has recently taken to using a Big Tech fact check facility to attempt to deflect from criticism of the Florida Governor. DeSantis spokesman Christina Pushaw has recently been vocal about her support for the often dubious fact-checks. Her stance is a total U-turn on her previous commentary on such matters, and the change appears to have occurred immediately after Elon Musk hired a World Economic Forum CEO, and then hosted DeSantis for his campaign launch.
April 2022:
I agree. It is absurd to think that anyone, including “content moderators” “fact checkers” or “experts”, can be arbiters of truth. https://t.co/CldsbyO6I3
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 25, 2022
June 2023:
Strategy of dishonest politicians and campaigns:
1) Tweet easily refutable lies
2) Get Community Noted
3) Complain about how “biased” Community Notes are, so supporters second-guess their validityRinse & repeat…
If you don’t like @CommunityNotes then consider … not lying— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) June 4, 2023
Pro-war, pro-Dreamer Pushaw has staunchly defended Twitter’s Community Notes function, claiming only “dishonest politicians and campaigns” would dispute fact-checkers. A quick review of her online history reveals not just rank hypocrisy on the matter, but glaring deceit.
“Twitter’s ‘fact checkers’ LIED,” Pushaw railed, as recently as August 2022.
“‘Fact checkers’ are regime narrative enforcers,” she declared in June, having leveled a similar accusation in May.
Even in May of this year, Pushaw said: “on big tech platforms the censorship itself is done in partnership with corporate media ‘fact checkers.'” In April she shared an article titled ‘Beware of the Fact-Checkers’, separately complaining that “[i]t is absurd to think that anyone, including ‘content moderators’ ‘fact checkers’ or ‘experts’, can be arbiters of truth.”
Pushaw also vowed she “would rather get surgery without anesthesia than spend 5 minutes at a gathering of ‘fact checkers'”.
Now, however, she’s all in favor of them – as the DeSantis campaign weaponizes “fact checking” against Trump in the very same manner of the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post.
