Fake news tweets going viral has unfortunately become a feature, not a bug, of the new X (formerly Twitter) experience under the ownership of Elon Musk. With the verification system turned upside down, any troll can perpetuate an entire news cycle based on whatever fake news they want to make up. And on Monday that cycle involved Marquette basketball star Tyler Kolek.
With Marquette in the Top 5 of the latest AP rankings and Kolek the reigning Big East Player of the Year, he’s received a lot of attention from fans of rival teams as a target for trash talk. That includes a meme about Kolek not being able to read thanks to a tweet from head coach Shaka Smart that praised the team’s high GPA in a picture that didn’t include him.
Kolek proved he indeed can read, and had a good sense of humor, after sharing that he has a 3.9 GPA.
https://twitter.com/KolekTyler/status/1737208002115940514
However, the story blew up in a bit more serious fashion when an X user by the name of Simon Charles sent a tweet out about Marquette suspending Kolek for the rest of the regular season because of “struggles in the classroom.” The tweet has incredibly been viewed over 8 million times. And it went so viral that Danielle Josetti, an administrator in Marquette’s athletic department, felt the need to respond on Twitter.
“As the senior compliance person at Marquette I can tell you this is unequivocally not true. This is neither funny, nor appropriate. Kick rocks,” Josetti said. The original tweet only received a community note about it being debunked after Josetti’s tweet.
As the senior compliance person at Marquette I can tell you this is unequivocally not true. This is neither funny, nor appropriate. Kick rocks. https://t.co/ISXPSdGB1b
— Danielle Josetti (@DanielleJosetti) February 28, 2024
The account in question, Simon Charles, follows the trend of verified accounts that are obviously fake that are popping up all over Twitter pretending to be sports insiders. The account, which has just 6,000 followers and a bio that reads, “Esteemed sports journalist & Patriots Beat Writer Double PHD in Journalism & Female Anatomy” has tweeted such gems as Travis Kelce announcing his retirement and Lane Kiffin being hired by Alabama. It’s becoming more and more exhausting to have to sort through the nonsense all day every day on the platform, but that’s clearly what X’s ownership wants.
Fortunately for Kolek, he indeed did play in Marquette’s victory over Providence on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, he had to leave the game with an oblique injury that may actually put some future game time in doubt.
