Shoeonhead Doubles Down After Lying To Millions

But the problem with alternative media is deeper than just her

Popular YouTuber Shoeonhead recently made a video critical of USAID. The video was filled with errors—for this reason, I wrote a fairly long and detailed reply, noting the many things she got wrong. Not only was the core point of the video—that USAID should be abolished—wrong, and only defensible if one neglects its benefits, she falsely claimed:

• USAID isn’t doing real aid because most of their money goes to contractors.

• Huge amounts were spent teaching Sri Lankan journalists to use genderless language.

• John Bolton was the head of USAID.

• USAID’s initial function was purely to fight communism, not at all philanthropic.

• USAID covered up a child sex abuse ring in Kenya.

• USAID funded drug production in Afghanistan.

And that’s not even mentioning the other very misleading claims she made, like that we were spending money on woke bullshit like inclusion in Vietnam, when in reality, the program in question provided minimal medical care for severely disabled people—including victims of Agent Orange. If treating people with severe burns as a result of U.S. militarism is woke, then count me in among the woke radicals!

Shoe has now—astonishingly—ended a years-long Twitter break to respond to the article.

Thousands of her adoring fans have claimed triumphantly that she wrecked me. But her reply is a ridiculous pack of lies. I didn’t just note one or two inaccuracies—I noted many different things that were false. See above. And while Shoe is correct that she systematically ignored the good things USAID did, she did so in a video that advocated abolishing USAID. If one advocates abolition of some program, they should take into account the fact that its termination will cost north of 25 million lives in the next 15 years.

It’s also misleading describe her error as merely saying that Bolton was an administrator when he was actually an assistant administrator. She didn’t just say he was some administrator—she said he was the head of USAID, and used that as evidence of USAID’s nefariousness. Making such a claim makes it clear that she did not engage in even minimal fact-checking.

If you want, you can read the rest of the thread, in which she doubles down on her lies. She does not have the slightest bit of embarrassment that she spread lies to millions of people in support of a policy that will kill millions. Despite my pointing out clear, unambiguous factual errors, she has not even made a single correction beneath the video. People who watch the video would have no idea that much of what she said was pure fabrication, even though she now knows it to be so. Beneath her veneer of populism and irony, Shoeonhead did something deeply evil—lying in pursuit of a policy that will devastate entire continents.

She accuses me of just quibbling over minor details. But that is bullshit! The most important takeaway of her video was that USAID should be abolished. I argued that it shouldn’t be abolished and noted that her case for its abolition could only be sustained through constantly saying false things and ignoring all its benefits, which are orders of magnitude more than its cost. This would be like arguing that we should stop treating people for cancer by noting that chemotherapy is deeply unpleasant, wholly ignoring the fact that it cures cancer.

Richard Hanania

has an excellent article titled Why the Media is Honest and Good. Despite defending the media, he acknowledges that the media has a partisan slant. Despite this, however, it’s still infinitely preferable to the ocean of bullshit that is alternative media. When Joe Rogan says false things to millions of people, he doesn’t even bother issuing a correction. Flagrant bullshit artists like Brett Weinstein can thrive in alternative media because no one checks their facts.

The mainstream media would never have released a piece like Shoe’s. They would never have gotten things wrong as basic as merely saying Bolton used to be the head of USAID. The mainstream media is broadly in the truth business. They check sources, interview important witnesses, and cover what is happening. While they’re sometimes wrong, and clearly have bias, they’re at least fastidiously committed to avoiding obvious falsehood. They sometimes mislead or overly focus on minor issues, but they rarely purvey easily-checkable falsehoods.

Alternative media is not the same. As Shoe shows, when they say things that are false, they don’t care. So long as they feel they’re directionally correct, they feel they have unlimited license to lie or slant the truth. When they’re called out on falsehood, they don’t correct it, preferring to dunk on the fact checkers.

Shoe didn’t even seem to think the fact that she mislead millions of people was a big deal. Her level of disregard for the truth—not even bothering to correct things she knows to be false—is rather astonishing. If the mainstream media did something like this, if they spread falsehood, didn’t correct it, and then smugly mocked the people pointing this out, we’d never hear the end of it. But when alternative media lies—and at this point it truly is a lie, not just a falsehood, for Shoe now knows it to be false—they face no accountability.

Alternative media is fundamentally in the entertainment business, not the truth seeking business. They misinform because they have no incentive not to. As the recent debacle showed, even when they’re called out for saying things that are false, their fans will mostly defend them. So long as one is witty and entertaining, the fact that most of the facts they listed are false or misleading is of little consequence.

Sloppy reasoning is also abundant in alternative media. Shoe, for instance, argued that any particular USAID activity was likely nefarious, based merely on the presence of a small number of instances of USAID behaving illicitly under a philanthropic-sounding front. When I pointed out that it’s irrational to think any particular program is a front for more insidious activity, based only on the fact that a few programs have been discovered to be, she responded with mockery.

This is a person with no interest in the truth. A person interested in the truth does not vaguely claim—wholly without specific evidence—that random programs are a front, based merely on the fact that a decade ago, one USAID program was a front. That’s like saying Shoe is a murderer based merely on the fact that some YouTubers have been discovered to be. This is partisan hackery taken to the extreme—an over-the-top refusal to consider the possibility that a program that she hates might have done some good.

Serious political analysis involves analyzing costs and benefits. Were one who advocated abolishing USAID to be serious, they’d look at the good things USAID did, not just the bad. However, if one’s aim is to merely produce a piece of anti-establishment coded propaganda, then there’s no reason to consider the millions of children who will now die because of USAID cuts.

If you’re in “independent media” like Shoe or I, you don’t have external fact checkers. No one has to check your work before it goes onto the internet. For this reason, the quality of the information is lower, but the propaganda value is higher. If one has to produce a nuanced piece, considering both sides, their piece will not be as convenient for culture-war flinging as if their piece is a propaganda hatchet job.

While there are some people who carefully check their facts before publishing a piece, many do not. The people who are most prominent generally don’t—pieces will go more viral if they have outlandish claims of dubious veracity. That’s why Michael Shellenberger can spout easily-checkable falsehoods without ever facing any pushback.

Mainstream media is certainly not perfect. But it’s infinitely better than the bullshit-spreaders in alternative media. In the internet age, there are no longer gatekeepers. The only limit on one’s reach is how entertaining they are. For this reason, the truth is routinely ignored. That which is true is usually less entertaining and sensationalist than that which is false. Falsehoods get halfway around the world before they’re corrected. In Shoe’s case—and this is particularly galling—even when she knows what she said was false, even as her misinformation misleads hundreds of thousands of people, she does not bother to correct it. Someone this profoundly indifferent to truth should not be trusted.