How An Activist Journalist Smeared a Wounded Marine Veteran
An Activist Journalist with the New Yorker falsely accused a wounded marine veteran of having an iron cross tattoo. This led to a wave of attacks on social media and ultimately ICE, where the man now works, had to issue a statement demanding an apology.The woman, Talia Lavin, made her twitter private following the incident and the New Yorker apologized for the error.This woman is employed as a FACT CHECKER at the New Yorker and she couldn't even fact check the tweet before sending it out and causing real harm to an innocent man.SUPPORT JOURNALISM. Become a patron athttp://www.patreon.com/TimcastSupport the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, put out a promotional tweet.
They showed a man who had lost his legs in Afghanistan, serving as a Marine, who is now fighting child exploitation.
Well, a fact-checker from the New Yorker decided that the cross on his arm, a tattoo, even though you can't see the whole thing, must have been a Nazi iron cross, even though the iron cross isn't necessarily a Nazi symbol.
This led to a ton of people attacking this individual.
People were doxing him.
They were pulling up photos of him and claiming that ICE actually was promoting an image of a Nazi.
This story is the perfect example of guilty until proven innocent.
It's also the perfect example of just why our media institutions are so broken from the inside.
The person who made this false claim is a fact checker with the New Yorker.
So first, let's talk about what exactly happened to this man who was injured in Afghanistan and is now fighting child exploitation, why people thought he was a Nazi, and how this is showing us just how bad media really is.
Before we get started, I have a huge announcement.
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The Death of Censorship actually has sold the best so far.
Something I designed.
And it is the Illuminati Pyramid being toppled over.
So if you want to support my work, here is another way you can do it.
On the 25th of May, we saw this tweet from ICE.
Learn more about HERO, Child Rescue Corps, and program for wounded, injured, and ill Special Ops Forces.
to receive training in high-tech skills, computer forensics, and law enforcement skills to assist federal agents in the fight against online child sexual exploitation.
And in the photo it says, Ice Hero Corps giving veterans a second chance to be a hero.
Following this, a fact checker from the New Yorker named Talia Lavin tweeted out something to the effect that his elbow tattoo was an iron cross.
She did delete the tweet, however, but she then tweeted this.
Some vets said this ice agent's tattoo looked more like a Maltese cross than an iron cross, common among white supremacists.
So I deleted my tweet so as not to spread misinformation.
She said, credibility is greater than sweet, sweet faves.
And then, either way, it's not heroic to join ICE.
But following her tweet, we saw another tweet.
This one from Quantum Take saying, That's right.
ICE put an iron cross in their self-promoting tweet.
Once more for those in the back.
That's a Nazi tattoo on his left elbow.
And this is official institutional propaganda.
This tweet got 17,000 retweets, 31,000 likes.
And the reason why this is so damning is that yesterday, when I was collecting information on the story, there were only 12,000 retweets.
Now, in the photo, you can see this tattoo on his left elbow.
But, for anyone who knows anything about the Marines, this is very obviously a depiction of some kind of naval cross.
Marines can be awarded the naval cross.
You can see that it's somewhat rounded.
Now, I'm not an expert on the armed forces and the awards they receive, but it was not hard to discover that the Navy Cross is an award for Marines, and that this man depicted in the ICE photo is a Marine.
Following the incident, we saw this story from the National Review.
ICE demands apology from New Yorker fact-checker who erroneously implied agent was a Nazi.
A New Yorker fact-checker sparked online controversy this weekend by falsely suggesting that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent featured on the agency's Twitter account had a Nazi tattoo, according to an ICE statement released Monday.
Justin Gartner, a combat-wounded Marine veteran and ICE forensic analyst, was lambasted on various social platforms over the weekend after New Yorker fact-checker Talia Lavin suggested in a since-deleted tweet that his tattoo commemorating the platoon he served with in Afghanistan was actually a Nazi Iron Cross tattoo.
In its statement, ICE condemned Lavin for baselessly slandering an American hero and cited her tweet as the genesis of the misinformed backlash.
ICE issued a statement clarifying what the tattoo was.
They said the tattoo on his left elbow is actually Titan II, the symbol for his platoon while he fought in Afghanistan.
The writing on his right arm is the Spartan Creed, which is about protecting family and children.
Anyone attempting to advance their personal political opinions by baselessly slandering an American hero should
be issuing public apologies to Mr. Gartner and retractions.
This includes Levin and the New Yorker.
And what is very surprising is that the New Yorker actually did issue an apology very quickly.
They said, The New Yorker has just learned that a staff member erroneously made a derogatory assumption about ICE agent Justin Gartner's tattoo.
The personal social media accounts of staff members do not represent the magazine, and we in no way share the viewpoint expressed in this tweet.
There is a lot to talk about here.
The idea of guilty until proven innocent, which has become pervasive in the culture war.
The fact that New Yorker employs a fact-checker who doesn't check facts.
And the fact that the Iron Cross is not necessarily a Nazi symbol.
First of all, the Iron Cross looks something like this.
You can see that the cross on Justin's arm has rounded edges, as I pointed out.
It's more likely to be a naval cross.
But not only this!
This photo is from the German Air Force in 2015, and they still use the Iron Cross.
The Iron Cross is used by Germany today.
It is used by many people for many reasons, but it is not technically a Nazi symbol.
Yes, white supremacists use it.
Yes, it was used by the Nazis.
But it is still used by Germany today, and it is a very common symbol.
The cross is also similar to what is called the Maltese Cross, which we can see in these various depictions.
And there's even a photo of Pope John Paul II wearing similar crosses.
It is a common symbol.
Guilty until proven innocent.
People saw this photo.
You can't even see the full tattoo.
And they immediately claimed that it was a Nazi tattoo.
This man started getting attacked and threatened.
And one of the tweets that is getting the most attention is still being retweeted.
Even though the story has come out correcting the matter.
Even though ICE has issued a statement.
Even though the New Yorker has apologized.
There have been 5,000 more retweets on this tweet since yesterday after the apologies were already made for being incorrect.
First of all, I can't really blame the layman for thinking this is true after a fact checker from the New Yorker started tweeting it out.
And I'm not surprised that many other people are concerned about this and tweeting it out.
I mean, if that really was a Nazi tattoo, I think everyone should know about it.
But it's not.
So people who are seeing this tweet think it's real and think other people need to see it, spreading misinformation rapidly, because sensationalism works and it gets shares.
What's even worse is that this is the perfect example of how media organizations have essentially become activist institutions.
This was a fact-checker with nearly 40,000 Twitter followers.
Why should I trust the New Yorker when their own fact-checkers are activists on the far left?
And don't take my word for it.
Every tweet that has been sent out by Tally 11 has been archived by muckrack.com.
On her Twitter, she has numerous posts talking about how she's living under fascism.
She has tweets calling people fascists.
She even said it sucks that her own dad is a fascist.
She accused Donald Trump of being a white nationalist, and even said, In my opinion, this person is a far-left activist.
So why am I going to trust her fact-checking?
Why am I going to trust the New Yorker?
The reality is, I'm not.
And in my personal experience, the New Yorker has written about me in the past, and they've done a terrible job of actually checking facts.
They tried so hard to squeeze in things that didn't make sense in the story, and basically begged me to confirm things that weren't true.
But it was a light-hearted story that didn't matter, and I said, you know what, this organization's garbage.
The rhetoric against ICE is getting pretty damn extreme.
This tweet from Occupy Wall Street says what to do if you encounter an ICE agent.
And guess what?
I have to blur this photo because I don't want to get a guideline strike on my YouTube channel.
But I'll just tell you basically what it says.
It's got various windows 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 telling you how to actually murder an ICE agent.
Now many people are saying this is clearly a joke.
But when you're actually saying what to do if you encounter an ICE agent, And then you tell people to commit an act of murder, there's a certain point at which jokes are not free speech.
These pictures are actually graphic depictions of a murder taking place.
It is a tweet actually telling people to murder someone.
It's fine if you want to think it's a joke.
And I know a lot of people on the left and the far left are going to say, oh, it's just a joke.
What about free speech?
Yes, free speech stops when you begin telling people to murder other people, even if you are joking.
At the end of this, we are left knowing that a fact checker did not check the facts.
They published a story that was completely untrue because they didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
So why should we trust these news organizations?
The New Yorker wants to apologize?
Fine.
But you've employed somebody with 40,000 Twitter followers who is posting misinformation on Twitter and causing a ton of problems for innocent people.
Yes, she deleted the tweet, but it doesn't matter.
She's a fact-checker.
You'd think she'd at least know how to do that.
It's her job, and she doesn't.
What worries me is when you see this mob forming on the internet.
Imagine what would happen if this man was out and about in his wheelchair, someone saw that tattoo on his arm, accused him of being a Nazi, and one of them had a bike lock.
Yes, he'd probably be seriously hurt, and he did nothing wrong.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
How do you feel about all this?
Is this really evidence that news organizations are employing activists?
Or is this just one person?
Should we chill out a little bit?
I know a ton of people are going to say, no, it's just proof.
We know they do this.
But it is possible.
We can take the rational approach and say it is just one person.
It doesn't mean everyone at the New Yorker is bad.
However, I think they probably should get rid of this person.
But that might be a little extreme on my part.
Comment below and let me know what you think, we'll keep the conversation going.
