I hated Kirk as much as the next Lemmy user but I think he’s right to apologize. He parroted a technically-incorrect statement and the right thing to do is to acknowledge it. The world has become wayyyy too ok with “close enough” and “sounds true” attacks.

As soon as a rumor starts, a meme is “made” with every applicable template. I watched it happen real time in the comments of a now-deleted misinformation post about the Kirk shooting. Those memes are surely still circulating despite being proven false and 99% of people aren’t gonna fact check.