Thousands of social media posts have misleadingly painted President Joe Biden and his administration as catalysts of chaos who not only mishandled the temporary shutdown of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline last Friday, but engineered it.
Ali Swenson
President Joe Biden delivers remarks about the Colonial Pipeline hack, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, May 13, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) May 13, 2021 - 4:45 PM
A graphic calling the East Coast fuel supply crunch âBidenâs Gas Crisis.â A tweet speculating that gas stations running dry was an âINSIDE JOB.â A meme depicting the president and vice president cheering about the âGreen New Dealâ in front of a snaking line at a fuel station. These and thousands of other social media posts along with conservative websites and commentators this week misleadingly painted President Joe Biden and his administration as catalysts of chaos â who not only mishandled the temporary shutdown of the nationâs largest fuel pipeline on Friday â but engineered it.
Conservatives seize on gas crunch to blame Biden, stir base
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President Joe Biden delivers remarks about the Colonial Pipeline hack, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, May 13, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A graphic calling the East Coast fuel supply crunch “Biden’s Gas Crisis.” A tweet speculating that gas stations running dry was an “INSIDE JOB.” A meme depicting the president and vice president cheering about the “Green New Deal” in front of a snaking line at a fuel station.
Thousands of social media posts have misleadingly blamed US president Joe Biden and his administration for not only mishandling the temporary shutdown of America’s largest fuel pipeline last Friday, but engineering it.
One graphic called the east coast fuel supply crunch, triggered by the Colonial Pipeline cyber attack, “Biden’s Gas Crisis”.
Another tweet speculated that petrol stations were running dry as a result of an “INSIDE JOB”, with a meme depicting the president and vice president cheering about the “Green New Deal” in front of a queue at a fuel station.
In reality, a ransom-seeking cyber attack, not a Biden executive order or energy policy, triggered the shutdown that drove residents of states such as North Carolina to panic-buy so much petrol that nearly 70% of service stations in the state remained without fuel on Thursday afternoon.
A graphic calling the East Coast fuel supply crunch “Biden’s Gas Crisis.” A tweet speculating that gas stations running dry was an “INSIDE JOB.” A meme depicting the president and vice president cheering about the “Green New Deal” in front of a snaking line at a fuel station.