Fake Atlantic article on white supremacy, Muslims spreads online

This article is more than one year old.
Published on October 18, 2022 at 22:27
2 min read
By Natalie WADE, AFP USA

Social media users are sharing a purported screenshot of an article from The Atlantic on how Muslim parents have become "the new face of the far right." But the image has been digitally manipulated; the story does not appear on the US magazine's website, and both the publication and the supposed author have refuted the claim.

"The Evolution of White Supremacy," says the purported headline, shared in an October 13, 2022 Facebook post.

The subhead says: "In Dearborn Michigan, Muslim parents who oppose teaching pornography to children become the new face of the far right."

Screenshot of a Facebook post taken October 18, 2022

The photo also circulated on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

"The Left is beyond parody," said US Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, in a now-deleted October 14, 2022 tweet sharing the image.

However, the headline is fabricated.

"The Atlantic published no such thing," said Anna Bross, senior vice president of communications at The Atlantic. Bross also addressed the claim on Twitter.

Journalists today are working in a climate in which political activists and even a U.S. senator are attempting to mislead the public by fabricating their work. We recommend that readers visit our website to assess whether an article was, in fact, published by The Atlantic.
— Anna Bross (@AnnaCBross) October 14, 2022

Abby Ohlheiser, who is credited as the purported article's author, also refuted the posts on Twitter.

Ohlheiser is a senior editor at MIT Technology Review. She is a former writer for The Atlantic but no longer works at the magazine; her last article was published July 11, 2014.

A reverse image search revealed the photo in the supposed Atlantic story was published by the Detroit Free Press, a newspaper in the US state of Michigan. It shows a Board of Education meeting in Dearborn, Michigan during which a group of parents objected to the use of educational materials and books that discuss LGBTQ topics.

AFP has debunked other fake Atlantic articles here, here and here.

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