CLAIM: A compilation of screenshots exhibits that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has tweeted equivalent messages after 12 mass shootings within the U.S. from 2012 to 2022.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The picture begins with an actual message Cruz tweeted following Tuesday’s taking pictures at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary faculty, however the next 11 tweets have been fabricated to appear to be he used the very same message with a unique metropolis title every time. A search of Cruz’s lively Twitter accounts, net archives and a database of deleted tweets, exhibits he didn’t repeatedly tweet the identical message.
THE FACTS: Within the days following the mass shooting in Uvalde through which a gunman fatally shot 19 children and two teachers, some social media customers are expressing frustration on the frequency of mass shootings within the U.S. and criticizing officers’ responses to them.
One put up circulating within the aftermath falsely claimed that Cruz, a Republican senator, had been recycling equivalent messages of help for victims following different massacres, solely swapping within the title of the town the place the mass shootings befell every time.
The put up options a picture exhibiting 12 tweets purportedly from Cruz. The primary screenshot reads, “Heidi & I are fervently lifting up in prayer the kids and households within the horrific taking pictures in Uvalde. We’re in shut contact with native officers, however the exact particulars are nonetheless unfolding. Thanks to heroic regulation enforcement & first responders for appearing so swiftly.”
The remainder of the tweets proven use the identical textual content however exchange “Uvalde” with completely different areas. The areas listed are New York, Sacramento, Indianapolis, Rochester, El Paso, Virginia Beach, Pittsburgh, Parkland, Las Vegas, Orlando and Newtown. The timestamp of every tweet additionally modifications.
“These mass shootings occur a lot that Ted Cruz actually obtained a template able to tweet every time they happen,” one Twitter consumer said Thursday, together with the photograph that purported to indicate a group of the nearly-identical posts. The tweet had gained greater than 16,000 retweets and 40,000 likes as of Friday morning.
The textual content within the first tweet, exhibiting Cruz’s response to Uvalde, is real. However the date within the fabricated screenshot is wrong. Cruz tweeted his message on Could 24, not Could 25.
The remainder of the purported tweets included within the picture usually are not correct, in line with advanced Twitter searches and checks of net archives such because the WayBack Machine, and a ProPublica database that features Cruz’s deleted tweets since 2013.
Whereas Cruz has used some phrases multiple times in tweets about mass shootings — for instance “lifting up in prayer,” and addressing the “group” and “first responders” — he has not used an equivalent template.
And Cruz didn’t tweet in any respect from both his private Twitter account nor his senator account in response to the mass shootings that occurred in Sacramento, Indianapolis, Rochester, Virginia Seashore and Parkland.
The dates listed within the fabricated screenshot falsely claiming to indicate Cruz’s responses to shootings in Buffalo and Rochester are additionally incorrect. The date given for the Buffalo taking pictures is listed as April 2022, when the taking pictures occurred the subsequent month, in Could. And the Rochester taking pictures is listed as September 2021, however that taking pictures occurred the 12 months prior, in 2020.
A spokesman for Cruz didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark.
That is a part of AP’s effort to handle broadly shared misinformation, together with work with outdoors firms and organizations so as to add factual context to deceptive content material that’s circulating on-line. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
