I’m “Just Asking Questions”

Help is on the way!

The Midland Board of Education meeting had been going on for a little over 30 minutes when Lisa Hansen stood up to talk. Midland, Michigan, is two hours north of Detroit and home to about 42,000 people.

Ten people had signed up to speak at the school board meeting, including Hansen. 

Hansen started by saying she had a speech prepared about a school board program but wanted to address something else first. She said this comment was not just for the school board, but for parents, grandparents, and taxpayers in the community. She took a deep breath and let out a sigh before saying, “I am still wrapping my brain around this.” 

Hansen clearly gets more upset, says that she is “furious,” and that there is a nationwide nefarious agenda being pushed through schools, including an issue surrounding “furries” or people who identify as animals. Hansen said that there is at least one school in Midland that has a litter box in the bathroom for any kids who identify as cats. 

She closes by saying she is going to investigate further, and that she was “putting it out there.”

“This whole furry thing has got me…I’m staying calm but I am not happy about it, and it’s happened on your watch and I don’t understand it,” she finishes. 

The board does not respond at the moment, and Hansen returns to her seat as the audience applauds. 

It is not entirely clear where Hansen got this information, but since then, this rumor has reared its head over and over on social media, where users claim that litter boxes are present in schools for children who “identify” as animals.

The problem is: this rumor is simply untrue. In 2022, NBC spoke to every school district that had been named in public statements as having litter boxes on campus. All of them said that they absolutely do not allow litter boxes for student use. That litter boxes would be a health code violation (you cannot have human waste in an open container, for starters). That all students use the toilets.

But that didn’t stop the story from spreading far and wide. 

A few weeks after Hansen made her statement at the board meeting, another person shared a video of Hansen’s speech on Facebook with the caption: “Kids who identify as ‘furries’ get a litter box in the school bathroom. Parent heroes will TAKE BACK our schools.”

That was just the beginning. 

Large accounts on X, often accused of spreading misinformation, retweeted the video of Hansen’s comments. The post quickly gained over 860,000 views (the post has since been taken down). 

The Midland superintendent tried to nip the rumor in the bud, saying that Hansen’s claim was false.

He wrote: 

But the rumors didn’t stop. Angry parents posted about litter boxes online, and hundreds of thousands of people shared false information, even as school district after school district reiterated: this is simply untrue. Unequivocally, no, we do not do that.

But Reddit threads with hundreds of comments discussing how teachers at schools were saying their neighboring school districts had litter boxes in the restrooms continued to pop up.

As 2022 wore on, more politicians started picking up the rumor. Three lawmakers in Minnesota said they’d heard that students were cutting holes in uniforms so they could use litter boxes at school. A school board member in Fargo, North Dakota, a gubernatorial candidate in CO, an Iowa state senator, and a member of the Ohio State Board of Education all spread claims that litter boxes were being used in schools in their state. 

During a televised debate on a bill focused on school children with behavioral issues, Nebraska Sen. Bruce Bostelman said he was “shocked” to hear that students “meow and they bark and they interact with their teachers in this fashion. And now schools are wanting to put litter boxes in the schools for these children to use. How is this sanitary?”

A clip of the debate with Bostelman’s comments spread quickly, with one Twitter post of the video gaining 300,000 views in a day. He later apologized for the remark and admitted he knew the claim was not true. 

Joe Rogan, a popular podcast host, told former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard that his friend’s wife worked at a school where a litter box was installed for a girl who identifies as an animal. The clip went viral — and then months later, Rogan admitted the claim was untrue. In a later episode, Rogan said, “it doesn’t seem that there’s any proof that they put the litter box in there.”

Years later, people are still talking about it. Though some people might have heard this story and thought to themselves, “That’s ridiculous, no school would ever put cat litter in their bathrooms,” for millions of others, clearly, it struck a chord.

How can we keep from falling prey to insidious misinformation?

As technology advances, it’s become increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. With the rise of AI, misinformation, and foreign influence (we know other countries are actively working to disseminate false information in the US), it is even harder.

Here are a few things to consider.

1. Don’t trust people who “just like to ask questions.” 

We’ve all seen commentators or news anchors make remarks like, “So IS the moon made of green cheese? I’m just asking questions, it’s a fair question!”

Is it, though? Often what people are doing when they are “just asking” far-fetched questions is trying to plant the seeds that something could be real, even when they know for sure that there is no evidence of what they’re asking.

And if they can get you to start feeling afraid of what they are “just asking” about, they can get you to subscribe/tune in/share. 

Vanessa Otero, the founder and CEO of Ad Fontes (a company that spends thousands of hours consuming media to determine the reliability and the bias of various media organizations), says no reporter should be tossing around questions like that. The job of a reporter is to report facts, not to wildly speculate about things they don’t have evidence for. 

2. Try to change your news habits. 

Online algorithms feed you things they think you’ll click on. If you’re clicking on conspiracy theories or propaganda sites, you’re going to get more of it. When someone complains that “XYZ social media site is just full of dancing girls in bikinis,” my face turns red from secondhand embarrassment. That person has spent a lot of time consuming girls-in-bikinis content, which is why the algorithm feeds them more. 

Ad Fontes ranks certain media organizations not just by their political leanings, but also how many facts they report. Looking at this chart, you can see the ones right at the top middle: companies like the Associated Press, Pew Research Center, PBS Frontline, the BBC, ABC News.

If you want to change your news diet, try spending less time doomscrolling and clicking on random social media links and more time intentionally consuming reliable information.

3. Remember that TV programming can change throughout the day. 

Most cable news channels lean more toward straight fact-driven reporting during the day. In the evening, the programming becomes more opinion driven.

That means what you see on CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC at 11:30am is not going to be the same content as 8pm. You don’t go to a restaurant, order a burger, and then get mad when it’s not chicken. The same thing is true of cable news: don’t tune in in the evening and then get mad that it’s not straight news reporting. 

4. News organizations are money-making businesses. 

Nothing will change if we continue to reward bad behavior with clicks and views. Media companies tend to listen if the audience and advertisers stop spending time and money on their content. 

5. Understand the difference between bias and lie. The two have seemingly become synonyms, but they actually are not. A bias is the lens through which you view a set of facts. You can be factual AND be biased. And vice versa. You can be very neutral and lie. 

For example: the news is reporting that there is a fire at 123 Main Street. The news anchor says, “The fire at 123 Main Street is being fought by five firefighters. Due to budget cuts and people who are unwilling to invest in public infrastructure, there are a small number of firefighters responding to the blaze, and it is endangering their lives and the lives of the community.” 

Alternatively, a news anchor could say, “The fire at 123 Main Street is being fought by five firefighters. These firefighters are heroes, overcoming every obstacle to stand between the public and the growing fire.”

Can you see how both news anchors reported the facts: there is a fire at 123 Main Street, and there are five firefighters on the scene? But the way in which the facts were characterized indicates their bias.

Bias and lie are not synonyms. They don’t share the same definition. A lie is something that is untrue, a bias is a lens through which things are viewed. 

Ultimately, our news consumption matters. We can’t just look at the media landscape and think it’s someone else’s problem. 

A good rule of thumb is that if you don’t have the time or desire to independently verify something, you’re better off not sharing it.

And check out the Ad Fontes media bias chart for more information, and to find the best news sources.