Ian Patrick, FISM News
It was revealed this week that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s claims about her experience during the Capitol Hill riot were slightly fabricated.
Ocasio-Cortez initially shared her story on Instagram live, detailing her experience in an hour-and-a-half long video. It was later reported by Newsweek. Her intense account implied that multiple rioters were banging on her office door, asking “Where is she?” This prompted the young Representative to hide in the bathroom in her office, where she began to think that “everything was over.”
However, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina described a very different scene in a recent tweet. Her office, two doors down from Ocasio-Cortez, is located within the Cannon House Office Building, one of many buildings that surround the Capitol and that make up the Capitol complex. (Click here for a map of the complex).
Mace tweeted that on the day of the riot she evacuated her office “due to a nearby threat.” On Tuesday of this week, in response to the Newsweek article, Mace reported that rioters “never stormed our hallway” and that Main Stream Media was trying to “fan fictitious news flames.”
.@AOC made clear she didn’t know who was at her door. Breathless attempts by media to fan fictitious news flames are dangerous.
My office is 2 doors down. Insurrectionists never stormed our hallway. Egregious doesn’t even begin to cover it. Is there nothing MSM won’t politicize? pic.twitter.com/Tl1GiPSOft
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) February 2, 2021
Newsweek later made a correction that only one person was looking for Ocasio-Cortez, and that person turned out to be a police officer. Ocasio-Cortez was reportedly unaware of who this person was at the time that she was hiding. She responded on Thursday to Mace with a reproving tweet, claiming that Mace had previously stated that she was in lock-down herself.
This is a deeply cynical & disgusting attack, @NancyMace.
As the Capitol complex was stormed and people were being killed, none of us knew in the moment what areas were compromised.
You previously told reporters yourself that you barricaded in your office, afraid you’d be hurt. https://t.co/4FyWsaXSDx pic.twitter.com/7gW6yKO9gJ
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 4, 2021
When the news broke onto Twitter, hashtags such as #AlexandriaOcasioSmollet, referring to the infamous Jussie Smollet story he told of being assaulted by two white men, and #AOCLied began to trend. Instead of locating helpful information about what actually happened in the story, however, visitors to these tags were treated with spam.
Twitter users in defense of Ocasio-Cortez flooded these hashtags with pictures of their pets, drawings, memes, and in some cases their favorite K-Pop groups. K-Pop spamming has become a popular way of shutting down hashtags or trends, such as with the BLM Protests in 2020. When #WhiteLivesMatter and other anti-BLM content was trending on social media, K-Pop fans flooded the hashtags with photos and gifs, making it impossible to locate anything actually connected to the topic.
Due to the flood of unrelated content in these trends, and the conflicting stories, it makes it near impossible to distinguish the full truth on Twitter. As of today, no official confirmations have been made as to what actually happened in the Cannon Building on January 6th. Ocasio-Cortez’s office reportedly sent out an email to followers asking them to report any “misinformation” against her story so that it can be removed from Twitter and Facebook.
BREAKING: AOC just emailed her followers to mass-report everyone who tweeted #AlexandriaOcasioSmollet today so Twitter and Facebook will take down any posts criticizing or fact-checking her pic.twitter.com/iTsAAUWplt
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 4, 2021