Misinformation has been rampant this election season, affecting everyone from immigrants to federal agencies. While social media and technologies like AI have been considered culprits in the proliferation of fake news, a recent poll revealed that most voters blame politicians for misinformation with a whopping 51% of respondents saying their role is more worrisome than other agents.
In this context, any situation can be fertile ground for spreading false claims and authorities have had to be on their guard to debunk them before they go viral. Case in point: on Tuesday, the director of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, Gabe Monzo, was forced to dispel a rumor that thousands of immigrants were being flown overnight to his facilities.
Although Monzo admited in a board meeting that he didn't know the source of the rumor, he said he has been getting calls from people in the community inquiring about it, some of which are from police and people involved in politics, reported by Pennsylvania's Trib Total Media. The rumor got exponentially bigger considering that President Donald Trump will be holding a rally in the facility on Saturday.
"I just want to dispel that rumor, and do that emphatically, that we are not doing that," Monzo said. "It's not happening. We have over 100 cameras on this airport. It's not part of what we do. And just, please — I'm very serious — we've been getting legitimate calls from legitimate people that are getting these phone calls, and it's not happening."
Monzo also stressed that the rumor was implausible just by understanding the airport's capacity, saying that ""(If) five Airbuses come in the middle of the night, I guarantee the people in Lawson Heights would hang me in effigy." He also encouraged anyone who has evidence of immigrants being flown into the airport to share it so it can be investigated.
Pennsylvania is proving to be a key battleground state for this upcoming presidential election. Vice President Kamala Harris was in Erie a few days ago while her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, made an appearance in Pittsburgh on Tuesday and the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, is slated to give a speech in Pittsburgh on Thursday.
Although Monzo confirmed that everything is almost set for Saturday's Trump rally, false claims about immigrants arriving at the airport have become a distraction that has affected his team's ability to concentrate. "It's really frustrating to even consider these issues," he said. "These are just nuisance."
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