Is Steffan telling social media fibs again?

Around the time of the last election, and the outbreak of Ebola in Africa, Steffan Browning shared a petition on Facebook suggesting that homeopaths should be sent to Africa to help treat Ebola. At the time he claimed that the posting of the link on Facebook was an automatic thing. I never bought that argument. I tried using the same petition site, and the posting to Facebook was always a opt in step. But laying out the argument in text was too difficult.

 

I mention this because it looks like Steffan might be being economical with the truth about his social media again. During John Key’s valedictory speech  Steffan Browning posted the following photo:

17265276_10154473075983549_7340885312260176692_n

With the caption:

Thought John Key might like a little bit more blood for his valedictory speech, the day that we get confirmation of the raid he approved was responsible for innocent civilian deaths. Disgusting legacy!

Needless to say this was not taken well by many on the right. Chris Bishop, and Jenna Raeburn both tweeted about it:

Christopher_Bishop___cjsbishop____Twitter

Jenna_Raeburn_on_Twitter___Total_classlessness_from__SteffanBrowning__Politics_should_be_put_aside_for_valedictories__https___t_co_5I5vTJFiWO_

Unsurprisingly this also got picked up by the media, with NewsHub running a story last night about it. In the story NewsHub claim that it was only posted on Steffan’s personal profile, not his MP verified page.

Screenshot_20170322-221157

However, if you look closely at the profile pictures in the top left of the NewsHub photo and the photo posted by Chris Bishop, they don’t match:

Christopher_Bishop___cjsbishop____Twitter cropped Screenshot_20170322-221157

The profile photo in the image that Bishop posted matches with the name and profile of Staffan’s verified MP’s page:

_1__Steffan_Browning_MP

So unlike NewsHub reported, Steffan posted the image and comment to both his Facebook profile AND his verified Facebook page. NewsHub may have just missed the page post.

 

At some point during the evening Steffan deleted the post from his verified Facebook page, and has either told the party Chief of Staff that it is gone, or has done nothing to correct her belief that it had been taken done. She has publicly tweeted that it is gone:

People___Planet_on_Twitter____kaupapa_The_post_is_down__

However the post was still up on his Facebook profile, and publicly available:

Screenshot_22_03_17__10_33_PM

In fact, even as the Green’s Chief of Staff was publicly stating to someone that the post was down, it was still up. So once again Steffan allows people speaking on behalf of the party to make claims that are demonstrably untrue, either by lying to them, or failing to correct them.

 

The photo was still up on Steffan’s profile around midnight last night. However it was taken down before 7:30am. Though I still stand by my expressed view that Steffan has either willfully, or by omission, told fibs about where it was posted.

 

I shall leave the final observation to Jeremy (@nz_voter):

Jeremy_on_Twitter___Love_how_our_taxes_pay_for_these_mouth_breathers__https___t_co_2iT8OxtxOR_

matthew