Podcaster, racial epithet flinger and COVID misinformation spreader Joe Rogan has logged yet another embarassing gaffe, posting fake news about Russia, Ukraine — and actor Steven Seagal.
He had slapped onto Instagram a doctored CNN photo that purports to show the former action star, a buddy of invading Russian President Vladimir Putin, working with Russian troops in Ukraine.
Without vetting the source or making sure the alleged tweet emanated from CNN, Rogan put up a photo of Seagal clad in army gear from the film “Cartels,” released in 2017.
“Intelligence agencies around the world have spotted American actor Steven Seagal among Russian special forces positioned around the outskirts of Gostomel airfield near Kyiv captured by Russian airborne troops,” the faux report said, according to a screenshot of the now-deleted post shared by Military Times, followed by Rogan’s own words. “If I had to guess the plot of this f—d up movie we’re living through I would say we are about 14 hours from the arrival of the aliens.”
The Poynter Institute’s Politifact unmasked the item as false by simply calling CNN and asking them. Rogan had already deleted his post by then, backpedaling on Instagram by calling it a “parody” and justifying his mistake by insisting it’s something that could have happened.
“I deleted my earlier post about Steven Seagal being in Ukraine because it was parody, which isn’t surprising, but honestly it wouldn’t be surprising if it was true either,” Rogan wrote. “He was banned from Ukraine in 2017 because he was labeled as a national security threat. I, like all of you hope the tragic situation is resolved there quickly.”
It would have been easy enough to vet.
“All he had to do is Google ‘cnn Steven Seagal’ to see that that news piece does not exist,” wrote one Twitter user.
“Free speech is wonderful....... unless you’re an idiot with a wide reach,” tweeted another, referring obliquely to Rogan’s 11 million listeners.
Rogan is already under fire for spreading misinformation about the novel coronavirus, the pandemic and the proven public health measures set up to combat it, such as widespread masking and vaccines. In January, recording artist Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify, where Rogan’s podcast lives, and soon after so did singer Joni Mitchell.
Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have also chastised Spotify for not doing enough to combat COVID misinformation, though without mentioning Rogan by name. No sooner had he weathered that, than singer India Arie called out Rogan’s liberal use of a particularly harmful racial epithet.
Rogan has defended his podcast as a way to have “interesting conversations with people that have differing opinions.”
In the current kerfuffle, the rogue Rogan-Seagal post garnered more than 400,000 likes and 11,000 comments, reported Rolling Stone, with commenters’ attempts to highlight the misinformation all but lost in the slew of responses.
While Seagal notoriously has been granted Russian citizenship, personally given a Russian passport by Putin himself, joined a pro-Kremlin political party and even once helped broker a congressional delegation’s visit there, he has not expressed support for last week’s invasion of Ukraine.
“My prayers are that both countries will come to a positive, peaceful resolution where we can live and thrive together in peace,” Seagal told Rolling Stone.
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