It never fails.

Someone finds what they think is a juicy “gotcha” on someone they don’t like, and they throw it on social media to “inform” everyone of the “shocking” revelation.

It gets tons of likes/RTs/hearts, etc.

But oftentimes the “gotcha” is either not true or highly deceptive, not telling the full picture.

Such was the case this morning when a self-proclaimed “#Resist” Twitter user by the name of Akki tweeted out net worth figures for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in order to insinuate something sinister was behind the sharp rise in the numbers. Here’s what he tweeted:

https://twitter.com/akkitwts/status/1156560469085315072

As of this writing, his tweet has nearly 11,300 retweets and nearly 24,000 likes.

Liberal New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof saw the tweet and quote RT’d it, asking for comment from the Senator:

https://twitter.com/NickKristof/status/1156605578975862784

That tweet has over to 1,800 retweets and 4,300 likes.

The only problem with the insinuation that McConnell got rich from nefarious means is that it’s not true:

This is an old meme from 2014. @snopes looked at in February 2019: https://t.co/QH8Q3CFT4D
The short answer is that his wife inherited money in 2007, after her mother died.

— Alex Howard (@digiphile) July 31, 2019

From that Snopes piece:

That influx was the result of an inheritance his wife received upon the death of her mother, and that information has been part of public discourse since 2014, when it became campaign fodder for McConnell’s Democratic opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes:

[…]

Although the meme and the campaign ad upon which it was likely based were set up to make it seem as if McConnell’s wealth increase were the result of his role in the Senate and thus involved unethical or illegal activities, most of his net worth actually derives from his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who hails from a wealthy business family and married McConnell in 1993.

Instead of issuing a correction of his own, Kristof simply retweeted Howard’s tweet.

In contrast to the thousands of RTs and likes both Akki and Kristof received for their tweets, Howard’s currently has a mere 6 retweets and 39 likes.

To make the fake news even worse, neither “Akki” nor Kristof have deleted their original tweets.

Team Mitch roasted the columnist for it:

This is how fake news is manufactured.

3,000 likes on the question.

16 likes on the shameful correction. pic.twitter.com/OueN9Bod0P

— Team Mitch (Text MITCH to 47360) (@Team_Mitch) July 31, 2019

I’ve said it a million times: If you get something wrong on social media, don’t just amplify someone’s correction (or your own), delete your original post.

It’s what an honest person would do, anyway.

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— Based in North Carolina, Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter. –