Fact Check: Did a Restaurant Near the Red Hen Threaten to Burn All MAGA Hats? – By Holmes Lybrand (weeklystandard.com) / July 5 2018
David Cliff/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.
Obvious fake news churns out real threats.
An image has circulated on Twitter and Facebook claiming that the Blue Phoenix Cáfe and Market, a restaurant two blocks from the famed Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, was threatening those who donned Make America Great Again hats in its restaurant.
“If we ever see this [MAGA hat] in our establishment, it will be forcibly removed from your head and turned into a flaming pile of ashes,” the now-removed post said on a false Facebook page purporting to represent the Blue Phoenix Cáfe and Market.
But screenshots live forever.
The image was shared on Facebook to little avail but found a particular audience on Twitter, one that began threatening the Blue Phoenix Cáfe and Market over this fake post. The user @pinkk9lover who maintains 41,000 followers—TWS Fact Check could not determine just how many of that cluster are Russian bots—tweeted the image along with the address of the restaurant, suggesting that MAGA folks file civil suits against the establishment, closing with “#MAGA supporters will own you!”
https://twitter.com/pinkk9lover/status/1014082808002859009
Some followers of @pinkk9lover went straight to arson, positing that “restaurant’s [sic] can burn too.” Other threats included strange packages in the mail, more arson, and suggestions that the dreaded “bikers for Trump” should pay them a visit.
A reader of TWS Fact Check pointed out that the MAGA crowd’s frustration with the restaurant, which manifested itself in this fake post, may have stemmed from reports that the owner of the Blue Phoenix supported the Red Hen’s decision to ask White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave its restaurant.
The Christian Science Monitor reported that the co-owner and head chef of the Blue Phoenix “publicly voiced support for [the Red Hen] almost as soon as the news broke.” Perhaps this led to the fake post, which begat a false screenshot and ended, one hopes, in threats of arson.
TWS Fact Check would like to remind readers that no matter how obviously fake a post is (“in-house flamethrower,” really?), there will most always be internet users who believe it, so long as it fits certain preconceived notions.
