How social media spread a historical lie (Washington Post)

[caraher]

Paywalled, unfortunately, but important information for Democrats needing to debunk this piece of viral slander.

Kambree Kawahine Koa, whose bio identifies her as a “political news contributor,” scored big with her offering, which garnered almost 10,000 likes and close to 1,000 replies. “The Democrats created KKK,” she tweeted over a photo of a Klan march captioned: “This photo was taken at the 1924 Democratic Convention. It was known as the ‘Klanbake’ (just in case you want to Google it).”

The only problem? There was no Klan march at the 1924 Democratic convention — the photo was actually taken in Wisconsin — nor was the convention ever actually known as the “Klanbake.”

The article goes on to point out that "Klanbake" as a common contemporary nickname for the 1924 Democratic convention is now incorrectly rated as true by Google, Facebook, Wikipedia and others. The Klan was about equally influential in both major parties during that era, with some consistent geographical trends.

The truth about the complicated racial legacies of both parties — and the Klan’s influence on them in 1924 — has been perniciously contorted by activists deploying digital tricks, abetted (often unwittingly) by good-faith actors such as academics, journalists and volunteer Wikipedia editors. What’s left is a fake historical “fact” that has been “verified” by powerful digital properties such as Google, Facebook, Wikipedia and various online publishers without being true. Which reflects one actual truth: Now, not only can partisans and malicious actors manufacture fake news, but they can falsify history as well.

The article concludes,

Ironically, the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was, in fact, immortalized on the cover of Time magazine in 1924 in conjunction with his organization’s controversial role in a national political convention. But it was a story about the Klan’s involvement in the Republican convention in Cleveland that June. Perhaps future meme makers should take note: The magazine catchily dubbed the event “the Kleveland Konvention.”