Update to include Shapiro’s comments in paragraph 6
A snapshot of an alleged tweet by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who says she shared “red pill moment” cupcakes with poor kids, has spread on social media. It looks like the tweet was produced.
The alleged tweet, which was allegedly posted on the @benshapiro account on March 26 at 10:22, says: ‘My #redpill moment came about when I was 7 years old. My mother sent me to school with cupcakes for my birthday and the teacher let me share them with my classmates, even the poor whose mothers never sent cupcakes for their birthdays. The rage of that day has never left me. ”(Here, here, here).
Some shares of the alleged tweet on Facebook appear on comic meme sites (here, here, here). Some captions and comments show that some users take the content seriously or do not know if it is real. thought it was a joke or a parody. Then I read Ben Shapiro […] His tweet is not a joke ”; “Rude.”; “I blocked him on most social media because he makes me absolutely furious … statements like that are why”; “Is it real? If so, it really explains his worldview. ”
The term ‘red pill’ is probably a reference to the 1999 film The Matrix, where taking a red pill means it has to find new potentially awkward information, as opposed to the blue pill meaning it stays in content ignorance (here, here).
Reuters did not find a record of this tweet as he looked through Shapiro’s tweets around March 26 (twitter.com/benshapiro), examined an archived version of Shapiro’s Twitter page from March 26 (here) and conducted a keyword search on Shapiro’s Twitter account (here , here). Reuters searched Shapiro’s Facebook profile and could not find any 2021 message with the same content as the alleged tweet (here), nor could Reuters find evidence of the content of the report on The Daily Wire, which Shapiro ( here) co-founded.
Shapiro told Reuters in an email that the tweet was false.
It appears that the produced tweet may only have been posted on Reddit on March 26 (here) by a user whose bio says: ‘I’m making fake tweets. When I posted it, I wrote it ‘(here), and who’s made other fake tweets from Shapiro and other conservative commentators before (here, here, here). This user confirmed to Reuters via Reddit that they had made this “satirical tweet”.
They posted the manufactured tweet on a subreddit called ToiletPaperUSA (here) which describes itself as ‘dedicated to mocking Turning Point USA and conservative pseudo-intellectuals in general’ (here). The message on Reddit contains a comment that says: ‘THIS POST IS FLASHING AS’ FAKE NEWS ‘. THIS MEANS THE POST IS FALSE AND IS MOST SATIRE. ”
VERDICT
Untrue. No evidence to suggest that Ben Shapiro tweeted about this ‘red pill’ moment. The fabricated tweet has its origins in a satirical Reddit thread.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.