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It started with a simple post on X (formerly known as Twitter) by CBS New York reporter Tim McNicholas on Wednesday, Oct. 11.
McNicholas, an investigative journalist who has worked in the industry for years, posted a video showing that his car was stuck on the Cross Bronx Expressway near Throgs Neck thanks to a driver who “decided it was time to do some donuts,” as he put it.
In the clip, the car can be seen circling multiple times, with a man waving a flag out of the window.
However, the video, which was filmed by multiple people at different angles, soon became viral on X when a version of it, originally posted on Instagram by now-unavailable user @mjhealthandhome, made it to the page of X User @leslibless, also known as “Proud Army Brat.”
Her identity is not clear and she has a verified account.
The video, and @leslibless’ X post about it on Thursday, Oct. 12, both claimed that the scene was taking place on the Long Island Expressway and that the men were waving a Palestinian flag.
McNicholas, upon hearing the video went viral, took back to X to clarify again that the incident did not take place on the Long Island Expressway, nor was the flag a Palestinian flag at all.
Screenshots from the original video are zoomed in to show that the flag appears to be a Puerto Rican flag, as it has three horizontal red stripes, as opposed to the black, white, and green stripes for Palestine.
A note was also placed on the video by X users, clarifying the context of the original video.
Nonetheless, by Friday, Oct. 13, the post by @leslibless had been viewed 2.6 million times and reposted 14.7 thousand times, with many users adding Islamophobic language, even hours after the story was debunked by McNicholas.
The virality comes during a time of rampant disinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas war, with many claiming X to be the hardest place to find verifiable information, in part due to allowing users to pay a fee to verify their own accounts.
It is also happening amidst calls by New York State Attorney General Letitia James for social media companies to remove anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and other hateful content from their sites.
James’ letters call on popular sites like X, Google, TikTok, and Meta to explain the processes each has in place to calm the spreading encouragement of violence against Jewish and Muslim people and institutions following the initial attacks by Hamas.
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