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This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 13 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff had a terrible start during his team's game against the Houston Texans last week. He threw four interceptions by halftime, meaning he threw the ball and the other team caught it, taking possession. His team ultimately prevailed, defeating the Texas 26-23.
At halftime, someone posted a surprising statistic to social media — and it started going viral.
“This is now Jared Goff’s 7TH career game with at least 4 interceptions,” an X user with the handle MisterCiv wrote. “His record in those games? 6-0.”
Now, for those of you who don’t follow football, that is an extremely shocking, improbable and — as it turns out — ridiculous claim. But it just kept circulating.
The original poster even shared what appeared to be a graphic from a sports statistics website to back it up. That was apparently all folks needed to parrot the claim unchallenged. Even people who should know better, such as ESPN host Pat McAfee and Aaron Rodgers, the conspiracy theorist quarterback for the New York Jets. You may remember him as one of the guys Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wanted as a running mate.
Rodgers joined McAfee on his ESPN show the day after the Lions-Texans game. “I love Jared, I’m sure he’ll bounce back,” he told McAfee before referencing the viral statistic.
“The amazing stat, though, is this a true stat? He’s done four or more picks seven times and he’s won every one of those games?” Rodgers asked. “Yes,” McAfee quickly replied.
You can probably tell where I’m going with this: The statistic was a total lie. Just take it from the guy who made it up in the first place.
MisterCiv shared a clip of that moment from McAfee’s show on his X account, along with the message: “if you’ve ever wondered how easy it is to spread fake information, i made this stat up while laying in bed at halftime of the game.”
Now, this random social media user actually makes a great point. Thankfully, this is a totally harmless example of disinformation and the only consequence was McAfee getting embarrassed and having to walk it back. But what happened in that exchange between McAfee and Aaron “Do your own Research” Rodgers is basically the entire story of our information environment right now.
These are the kind of guys doing the “vetting” in our current information environment.
It’s not just sports, this is a problem that translates across our culture. Just look at U.S. politics: Lies and misinformation about immigration and the economy are spreading on this kind of terrain, where the anti-vaccine quarterback just parrots an unvetted statistic he saw on Elon Musk’s website to millions of people on ESPN.
That’s the problem in miniature of the enormous issue that we all face — one the rest of us need to figure out how to solve. Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know the answers but, if this situation showed us anything, it’s that we’re going to have to come up with some.
Allison Detzel contributed.