The madness of Judith Collin’s fake news tweet
Judith Collins posing beside her wall of heads she tears off kittens.
It’s a dumb thing to do, and on the surface of it, Judith’s retweet of a fake news story is more embarrassing than sinister, but when given the opportunity to back down and acknowledge she screwed up, Judith has doubled down…
Judith Collins defends linking to fake news article on France consent laws
Senior National MP Judith Collins is standing by a tweet linking to an article that made false claims about France’s age of consent laws.The YourNewsWire.Com article was headlined “France Passes Law Saying Children Can Consent To Sex With Adults”. In fact, France has just passed a law that made it far easier to charge adults who had sex with children under 15 with rape. It has strengthened its consent laws, not weakened them.
Yet Collins asked Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to “denounce this legislation of child sexual abuse”.
The article said France was the latest nation to “give into pressure from an international network of liberal activists determined to normalise paedophilia and decriminalise sex with children” by “abandonment” of its age of consent laws.
France had already made sex with any children younger than 15 an offence, but it did not automatically classify all such sex as rape – neither does New Zealand.
The new law makes it far easier for prosecutors to do so by introducing a new offence of “abuse of vulnerability”. Critics have argued that the new law does not go far enough, but not that the law goes backward.
The website the article came from has been described as a “fake news” outlet by multiple sources including fact-checking site Snopes and The Times. It includes bizarre, false articles claiming pop singer Katy Perry has endorsed cannibalism.
Collins responded to those on Twitter who asked why she was tweeting out fake news by tweeting to reputable news sources covering the same topic, but in a deeply different way.
She told Stuff she didn’t necessarily “agree” with every article she tweeted but wanted to draw attention to the issue.
…her defence as to why she tweeted a fake news story from a fake news site must surely go down as one of the most disingenuous in political history, watch her bend over backwards with her explanation…
“I’m just concerned about the story about France itself,” Collins said.
She said France had a chance to strengthen its laws and had not and she hoped Ardern would bring this up with French President Emmanuel Macron
“It doesn’t go far enough, that’s my issue,” Collins said.
“I was shocked to learn there is no age of consent in France….This is a civilised country, they should know better.”
“I often retweet articles of interest. I don’t have to agree with everything in those articles, otherwise I would never tweet anything except my own stuff.”
“I don’t censor people. I don’t say you shouldn’t listen to people you don’t disagree with. I say don’t shoot the messenger – and the message to me is not about allegations of liberal conspiracy, it’s that child sex abuse is wrong, it’s disgraceful, and in some countries it is easier than others.”
…so she’s not concerned about spreading fake news from a fake news site, she’s concerned with an issue that doesn’t actually exist the way the news story she retweeted presents it as?
This matters because if MPs are spreading false information with slants that make InfoWars look like a reputable fact checked news agency, they simply add to the continuing spiral downwards and promote subjective truths as opposed to objective ones.
We can’t expect citizens to conform to basic rules of reality if our representatives won’t.
Can’t imagine how she came to do this. A really dumb move.
She may get away with it this time. But if she repeats this sort of thing, she’ll quickly develop a reputation – and it won’t be for “Crusher”. More like “Con artist” Collins.
Perhaps Mrs Collins was having a practice run at posting absolute shite like Trump does, to see what the reaction would be?
Though consent age in France, seems a rather obscure topic to try and taunt the NZ PM with…
Judith was looking for the attention she needs and trying to wrong foot PM Ardern at the same time.
Toying with the truth makes her a front runner for leadership of the National Party, and a worthy successor to Key and that other bloke.
Yes indeed, and no doubt she will be in the top job before too long
Is Judith getting attention? Yes. Is she in the news? Yes. Will the type of situation getting the attention upset her supporters? No. Will her effort cement in their minds that she’s an independent woman going to do it her way and not be cowed by convention? Yes. So will they see it as madness and dumb? And will she? No.
Really though, it’s not dumb, it’s disgusting, it’s low-life and it’s typical.
Judith actually belived the news was true then she got caught with her pants down and now wont pull them back up fast enough cause she got caught. She is a prime candidate for the #Trump #Tweet #Admin
What a foolish, foolish thing for her to have done. Coupled with Joyce’s $11.7 billion “hole”, National is becoming more Trumpian every day with it’s “alternative facts”. I believe this mistake will come back to haunt her.
A rational, straight thinking, intelligent and lets say it sane person would say to everyone after he or she has posted something that is wrong and incorrect of ‘Oh dear. Sorry I made a mistake. I am immediately deleting that tweet/posting. I apologise for making false innuendoes’.
But along comes Judith Collins and hopefully many NZers look at such a posting and wonder as to her rationality, her ‘straight thinking’, her ‘intelligence’ and her sanity when she copies and pastes an obvious fake news item in attempt to make herself look superior and Jacinda look hopeless???!!!!!!
As she has indicated that whilst she is wrong to post such an item and will not remove it then it proves she is being arrogant. Arrogance is a typical NZ National Party trait and track record. Way to go Judith. Nice way to undermine the NZ National Party THAT YOUR ARE A MEMBER OF.Keep up the good work Judith at ruining the NZ National Party.
I do wonder why not one MP of the NZ National Party is also speaking out in support of Judith Collins???!!!! Will the ‘support’ of her be there by National MPs once she has achieved the so-called status of National Party Leader??!!!
Or is this all too clear proof all is not well in the NZ National Party and so attempts to take attention away from what is wrong in National and directing it all towards the current government???!!!
Was she drunk?