The Obama family summer vacation has moved from the south of France to Italy’s Lake Como, where the former first family is being hosted by George Clooney at his lakeside mansion. None of those news outlets indicated anything about the boat ride was suspect: Photographs from this outing were published by several media outlets, including Just Jared, CBS News, USA Today, Harper’s Bazaar, US Magazine, The Hill, and the Daily Mail in articles about the Obamas’ vacation. It was one of several photographs that were snapped by paparazzi during this trip. This photograph was snapped on June 23, 2019, while President Obama and his family were visiting with George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney at the Clooneys’ home near Lake Como, Italy, during their European vacation. If this Twitter user actually cared about “find(ing) out the truth!,” they could have done so with a modicum of effort. While it’s possible that this Twitter user was honestly perplexed by the image, the included hashtags, #pedopredators and #EpsteinsBlackBook, made it clear that the actual motive was to suggest that Obama and Clooney were somehow connected to Jeffrey Epstein, a registered sex offender who had recently been to arrested for trafficking minors.
#Obama hot dog game series#
Twitter user employed this strategy in July 2019 in posting a photograph of President Obama and actor George Clooney on a boat with a purported child, along with a series of questions suggesting that something nefarious had just asked, “What was going on then? Why does it look like Clooney is zipping his pants back up? Why does #Obama look stunned? Who is the very young girl?”
A common tactic among purveyors of misinformation is to hint at lurid or explosive claims by “ just asking questions” about otherwise mundane pieces of evidence.