He did what with a Couch?
Fake news and the use of the internet
The news of politician JD Vance having intercourse with his couch hit X (formerly twitter) like a storm, everyone was talking about it, and everyone had their own theories.
But did he really do that? Or was it fake news?
Fake news is defined by Chu et al (2012) as ‘fabricated news with the purpose of misleading people’ with two essential parts needed: the factual inaccuracies of the information shared, and the intent to mislead audiences.
Two types of false information exist - misinformation which refers to unintentionally misleading information, and disinformation which is intentionally misleading information.
With this knowledge it may still be difficult to decipher whether this story in particular is fake, ignoring the general outlandish nature of the claim (politicians have been known to do peculiar things, such as UK Politician David Cameron being accused of having intercourse with a dead pig head.)
To aid with deciphering, Jaster and Lanius (2018) have their own methods used to deem something as fake news, these being
Its truth value
Its content
Its distribution channel
The way in which they are presented
The intent of the publisher
These are important to consider as the origin of this story is from a twitter account, not the most trustworthy source of news. The original poster included a fake citation within their tweet, as well as following it up with a meme - "signaled that he was joking when he followed up the tweet with… meme." (Liles 2024,) indicating the unserious nature of the tweet.
Vamanu (2019) and Maiba (2021) also have created a criteria for fake news, focusing on linguistic features often present:
Photos or videos - to gain attention
Emotional or persuasive language
Repetition
Expressive and colloquial language
Involvement of social groups
Indifference to logical reasoning
One-sided argument
Applying these, the original tweet showcases having a photo, specifically a meme, following it and using expressive/colloquial language - for example the use of fucking instead of intercourse, unlikely for a trustworthy news source.
Snopes is a well known fact checking website with Jordan Liles being the one to tackle this rumour, it was overall deemed as false. The original tweet included a fake citation, immediately indicating that the claim as a whole may be fake. They also noted that this tweet was published the same day that JD Vance was confirmed as running for Vice President, which is significant as Vance’s name would be trending online. As well as this they ensured by reading all available versions of Vance’s memoir, with no mentions of his supposed couch endeavours. This fake news spread like wildfire throughout twitter, making some believe it as everyone was talking about it. And comedian John Oliver stating ‘If you ask me to draw a man that fucks his couch, 10 times out of 10, I’m drawing this guy,’ (Vanity Fair) of course this added fuel to the fire. Some still believe this claim, showing the power of fake news.