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A friend of mine just forwarded me a screenshot of the following May 20, 2020 (now-deleted) tweet purportedly from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose nickname and Twitter handle is AOC.

It's vital that Governors maintain restrictions on businesses until after the November Elections because economic recovery will help Trump be re-elected. A few business closures or job losses is a small price to pay to be free from his presidency. #KeepUsClosed

I've attached the screenshot of the tweet.

AOC tweet(?)

For some reason, I think this is fake. My feeling is further compounded by the fact that I Googled a chunk of the quote and the only thing that came up was someone's comment on a Yahoo News article. Can anyone provide confirmation on this, in one direction or the other?

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    Jun 29, 2020 at 9:40

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Polititweet.com has no references to any tweet matching the screenshot from 20 May 2020, nor any tweets from Rep. Ocasio-Cortez that mention the hashtag #KeepUsClosed.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's Twitter account is archived (alongside the archives of a number of other politicians) on PolitiTweet, a website that describes itself on its homepage

PolitiTweet helps keep the powerful accountable by monitoring celebrities, politicians, and public figures for silent retractions and deleted tweets.

The archive of her page from around 20 May shows only two tweets on the day, both re-tweets of @Nightline.

RT @Nightline: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on whether or not enough has been done to help protect essential workers - those most vulnerab…

RT @Nightline: An exclusive interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC. Her take on the pandemic’s impact on African-American and La…

A search of the hashtag #KeepUsClosed on Polititweet returns 0 results.

Furthermore, it is extremely trivial to edit tweets using basic developer tools to make any public figure say whatever you want.

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    Politwoops is another one, and same thing, 0 hit on #KeepUsClosed
    – Entropy
    Jun 23, 2020 at 18:17
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    Also Snopes snopes.com/fact-check/aoc-businesses-closed-tweet - "false". "Moreover, although the tweet was supposedly “shared over 20,000 times,” we could find no instances whatsoever of the original tweet’s having been shared or commented upon at all. It exists only as a screenshot of a faux tweet posted to a private Facebook group."
    – Lag
    Jun 23, 2020 at 19:44
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    @Yakk There is no image manipulation to be seen. You can literally edit the text that is being displayed (along with anything else you see in your browser).
    – David Starkey
    Jun 24, 2020 at 18:56
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    @Yakk i.stack.imgur.com/E6wYv.png
    – wizzwizz4
    Jun 24, 2020 at 19:58
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    @Yakk I'm not being clear. The process is not "take screenshot of webpage, then edit image". It is "edit webpage, then take screenshot".
    – David Starkey
    Jun 24, 2020 at 20:47
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AOC is saying the screenshot was faked:

@AOC: I usually don’t tweet to correct fake posts about me bc the right circulates so many, but needless to say the alleged “deleted” reopening tweet people are saying I wrote is a photoshopped fake being circulated by Republicans.

They tell lies because the truth isn’t on their side.

She quote tweets another user explaining how to use Politwoops to determine if a politician’s quote was deleted:

@annalecta: This US House candidate's screenshot of a tweet appearing to be @AOC urging restrictions on businesses until 2020 elections is FAKE.

@propublica's Politwoops database of deleted tweets by politicians is a good way to check before spreading misinformation: https://projects.propublica.org/politwoops/user/AOC

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