Gavin Newsom Slapped with Community Note After Pushing False Gay 'Ban' Narrative
Gavin Newsom has been fact-checked.
The California governor falsely claimed on social media that a “city in Tennessee has banned being gay in public.”
“We have to call this out,” Newsom wrote.
A city in Tennessee has banned being gay in public.
This is just the beginning. We have to call this out. https://t.co/0G1i7dKTgp
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 16, 2023
However, it wasn’t long before the Community Notes feature, which allows users of the social media platform X to correct factually wrong information as a collective, poured cold water over Newsom’s claims.
“The ordinance did not ban homosexuality, it banned indecent behavior,” read the Community Note, placed under Newsom’s original post.
“There was [a] 70 year old provision that banned homosexuality, however that portion of the ordinance was recently removed on an unanimous vote from the council.”
I love community notes. Here’s @GavinNewsom getting exposed as a liar. Again. pic.twitter.com/8wuPZLS7x4
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) November 17, 2023
According to the official public ordinance of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the ordinance “promotes public decency, maintains family-friendly environments in public places, and protects against harm to minors from public expressions appealing to prurient interests or that are offensive to prevailing community standards.
“The Ordinance [supplements] existing civil and criminal sanctions for indecent behavior, barring persons who engage in prohibited conduct from sponsoring events on a public space for two years and increasing to five years where the prohibited conduct occurs in the presence of minors,” it said.
Following his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, Elon Musk introduced the Community Notes feature, describing it as a “game changer for combating wrong information.”
Nice work by Community Notes team!
In general, Community Notes is a game changer for combating wrong information. https://t.co/i8qo5QdHUQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 21, 2023
Since its implementation early this year, users have fact-checked thousands of posts by everyone from world leaders and politicians to small-time content creators and even Musk himself.
Musk praised the Community Notes system in a recent interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, who called it a “breath of fresh air.”
“[N]o system is going to be perfect, but the batting average of Community Notes is incredibly good,” Musk told Fridman.
“I’ve actually, frankly, yet to see an incorrect note that survived for more than a few hours.”
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