A lie is halfway round the world while the truth is waking up for breakfast (reporting on Brexit)

1. At 3:58am on the 19th of September the senior political correspondent for Buzzfeed tweeted stating the following: "Lord Chief Justice has ruled BeLeave *was* a permitted participant and entitled to the donations made to it - contrary to Electoral Commission view - and so its return was correct (From this stemmed allegations against Darren Grimes)".

865 Retweets 1,818 Likes

2. Darren Grimes then retweeted this adding: "Happy Thursday! You can stick your trumped-up charges where the sun doesn't shine" and linking this to Channel 4 news, guardian etc.

514 Retweets 1,705 Likes

3. Guido Fawkes (right wing website, Boris Johnson fan) retweeted adding: "Jolyon Loses to Grimes… Again"

189 Retweets 504 Likes

4. Kate Hoey (MP and former face of Labour Brexit vote, may run for Brexit Party at next election) retweeted adding 694 Retweets 2,058 Likes

5. Mark Reckless (apparently was once was too drunk in the Westminster bar to be able to vote, was an MP in Kent but travelled to Wales to become an AM) added his retweet which got 81 retweets and 404 likes.

6. Leave.eu got involved retweeting and adding a further 872 retweets and 1,993 likes

(Darren Grimes again, again, again)

7. Julia Hartley-Brewer adding 467 Retweets and 1,723 Likes

The Electoral Commission then tweeted Buzzfeed senior political correspondent to correct misinformed post and got...58 Retweets
94 Likes. It's original statement on 17th of September got 30 Retweets and 24 Likes

What's interesting is that in several other examples, about Brexit and in other things, that the misinformed tweet always seems to travel so much further than the tweet correcting itself. I guess this plays into questions about how social media is having a much bigger impact on political opinion than our current rules/regulations understand but surely it will also be true for popular opinions about health, finance, anything really.

(Electoral Commission statement can be found here: https://www.electoralcommission.org....cessful-appeal)

It's been going on for ages, and it's a favourite trick of the established media.

Interesting expose.
I must be out of the loop though, I don't use Twitter or social media as an advise or influence platform .