The Mailbox Hoax That Won't Go Away Just Got Even More Fake

You’ve heard the hyperventilating claims that Donald Trump is driving around America and removing mailboxes and piling them up in an empty lot somewhere so you can’t vote for Joe Biden, or something, right? It’s all a bunch of typical election year hysteria, but the liars just got caught in a really embarrassing fashion. It started with the photo that went viral that looks like someone just threw out hundreds of blue mailboxes. This Bernie Bro, Thomas Kennedy, claimed that mailboxes were thrown out right before our eyes. Welcome to the latest attempt by Democrats to smear the president: The Mailbox Hoax.

Photo taken in Wisconsin. This is happening right before our eyes. They are sabotaging USPS to sabotage vote by mail. This is massive voter suppression and part of their plan to steal the election. pic.twitter.com/QXLWGIHTrz

— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) August 15, 2020

Fake news is running with the story that Trump is having mailboxes removed for nefarious purposes and they’re using this photo to prove it. A fact check at USA Today reported, “The picture — described as originating in Wisconsin — has taken off across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and elsewhere, being shared hundreds of thousands of times and viewed millions of times within a few days of the earliest posts on Aug. 14, 2020.”

The photo was taken by Reuters and one journalist is calling them out to correct the record. It’s a doozy. It turns out that the facility is a refurbishing factory (that makes mailboxes great again) and the pile has been there for at least three years. Read the whole thread. Fake news is dangerous. The entire country is under the impression that the Trump administration is rounding up and imprisoning mailboxes because of this one photo taken out of context. Photojournalist Gary He did some digging and found out the truth. Read through this thread.

When I called up Hartford Finishing, Inc., a woman on the phone confirmed that they have a government contract for the mailbox refurbishing and that they "get them from all over and make them look good again" (2/8)

— Gary He (@garyhe) August 17, 2020

To find this location on Google, you have to search for "Hartford Finishing". It's a side road, not like you can spot the mailboxes from a highway. The sign for the business is 20 feet away from the mailboxes. To omit all this from the caption is journalistic malpractice. (4/8) pic.twitter.com/DIvUTj9urb

— Gary He (@garyhe) August 17, 2020

Especially since @Reuters is a wire service, other news orgs are going to use these pictures as evidence of Trump tampering with the USPS. When it's later revealed that it was just a place where mailboxes get refurbished, trust in news organizations is further eroded. (6/8)

— Gary He (@garyhe) August 17, 2020

For the non journalists out there: I get it, you're anxious about the election. And maybe there ARE shenanigans going on! But this is the wrong way to conduct journalism and why you don't run stories based on random info on social media without vetting the hell out of it. (8/8)

— Gary He (@garyhe) August 17, 2020

Why hasn’t Twitter put a warning on the mailbox hoax tweet?

Twitter has not bothered to fact check or correct the original viral tweet that made this hoax spread, but they did temporarily delete the Babylon Bee’s satire account, so we can rest assured they’re doing everything they can to combat fake news.

We are back. Twitter destroyed our headquarters with a drone strike, but we are being assured it was an honest mistake.

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) August 17, 2020

Over 100k likes and it's a hoax.

This is simply a photo of mailboxes at a refurbishing center, but @Twitter LOVES to let leftwing hoaxes go viral without fact-checking!https://t.co/WbWRWYx84z https://t.co/d8u99NgWZ3

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) August 17, 2020