What was claimed
The Atlantic recently reported that the word ‘faggot’ has been tweeted 2.6 million times in the last three months.
Our verdict
The headline actually dates back to an article published in 2012.
Decade-old headline in The Atlantic is being shared on social media
26 February 2024
A screenshot of an old headline in the US magazine The Atlantic has been circulating online in recent days.
The headline says: “In the Last 3 Months, the Word ‘Faggot’ Has Been Tweeted 2.6 Million Times”.
The screenshot, which shows “The Atlantic” written at the top and the name of the author below the headline, has been shared on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook with captions including “No need to thank me” and “We are so back!”
This is a real Atlantic article, but it’s not as recent as these posts may suggest. It was first published in 2012.
The article said the figure came from a tool monitoring homophobic language on Twitter, as it was called at the time. This same tool suggests the use of the slur has generally declined since a peak in 2014, although it only shows data up to July 2023. Full Fact has not verified these numbers.
This is not the first time we’ve seen misleading screenshots of articles being shared. We’ve recently written about a screenshot of a Telegraph article about migration that was edited to feature a photo from Notting Hill Carnival, rather than the generic image of a UK border sign that was actually used.
We’ve also seen multiple examples of entirely fake headlines being shared on social media, including those supposedly published by The Guardian, BBC, Haaretz and the Irish Independent.
Image courtesy of Solen Feyissa
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because the headline comes from an article published by The Atlantic in 2012.