Redhawks
The Internet is a dangerous place. People’s lives have been ruined by one tweet. Careers shattered by a deep dive into one’s social media account. Hell, if it weren’t for the internet, none of us would have ever found out that Harvey Weinstein whacked off into a flower pot. How would we have advanced as a civilization? The days of downloading two pornos on Limewire in the morning so they buffer when you got home from work and chatting on AOL Instant Messenger have been replaced with our whole lives being lived out online. Someone got bullied? By tomorrow morning that kid will be on Ellen. The internet is so goddamn reactionary and many times it backfires.
Take for example the incident that happened this week that caused an uproar on the world wide web. According to Awful Announcing, Native American activists at the Rising Hearts coalition started a very believable fake-sports-news campaign by creating fake websites designed to look like the Washington Post, ESPN, Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, etc. and announcing that the Redskins organization has changed its name to The Washington Redhawks. Check out some of the news reports below and how closely the sites resemble the ones their fraudulently copying.
ESPN
Washington Post
Sports Illustrated
Bleacher Report
The only difference between these sites and the actual sites is small differences in the URLs. These dudes even went so far as to create a fake Washington Redhawks website.
Redhawks
The fake news eventually reached the Redskins organization, which released a statement yesterday:
Statement from the Washington #Redskins pic.twitter.com/u3DQJFiFXi
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) December 13, 2017
The Native advocates then released a statement explaining their motive:
“We created this action to show the NFL and the Washington Football franchise how easy, popular and powerful changing the name could be,” says Rebecca Nagle (Cherokee Nation), one of the organizers of the stunt. “What we’re asking for changes only four letters. Just four letters! Certainly the harm that the mascot does to Native Americans outweighs the very, very minor changes the franchise would need to make.”
God, the internet is a lawless place with zero checks and balances. A true blessing and a curse.
[h/t Awful Announcing]