Associated Press Resorts to Base Prejudice In Flawed Study to Accuse Florida of Intolerant Lawmaking – Opinion

Only when the Associated Press makes biased assumptions about homosexuals is anger possible.

We knew that this was going off the tracks right away. This train probably left the station before it did. The press is once more trying to denigrate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Their success rate with these issues is comparable to Joe Biden trying a 1,000 piece borderless, 2-sided jigsaw puzzle. You also have the Associated Press, who has a history with DeSantis and Christina Pushaw, his press secretary.

This is the Florida Parental Rights in Education Law. It was implemented this summer, and schools will open next week. The AP thought they were able to provide solid proof about the law’s evil nature. I stress the word “felt” here because writer David Klepper certainly did not think this matter all the way through. Klepper’s headline is a massively incorrect description of the law. This bias shows from the start. Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law fuels anti-LGBTQ hate online.

This reliance upon the biased description is more than a sign of the partisan approach. It is also the basis of all the unravelling of this sloppy piece of journalism. Klepper claims that a new study has shown that the Florida law is responsible for an increase in hate speech and intolerance online. You must refuse to accept pragmatic thinking and also use base prejudice to defend the people you want to help.

This is the alleged hatred This is based upon a study that was conducted Human Rights Campaign where the outfit tracked a significant number of social media posts that it flagged as deeply problematic towards the LGBT𝜋 community. This flaw can be seen in the way they present page upon page of lecture verses about intolerance towards this section of society before actually getting to the data. They finally set up the study’s framework.

Researchers used the social analytics tool BrandWatch to collect samples of tweets posted between January 1 2022, and July 27 2022, matching queries designed to identify the use of slurs associating the LGBTQ+ community and its allies with “groomers’’ or child predators.

Calendar parameters are meant to correspond with Florida’s legislation timeline and measure online hatred when it is associated with news stories about that Florida law. You will then see the absurdity of this survey, which proposes blame and has a flawed measuring system.

An initial flurry of tweets emerged when political proponents of the ‘Don’t Say Gay or Trans’ bill moved to re-brand it as an “anti-grooming” bill. On March 4, Christina Pushaw, the press secretary of Republican state governor Ron DeSantis, tweeted that the bill should be described as “anti-Grooming” and that those against it are “probably” groomers or at least “don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children”.  

Respondents are critical of a law rebranding. In reality, it’s a rebranding. The use of the “anti-groomer bill” was in response to the legislation being falsely dubbed the “don’t say gay bill,” but this inaccuracy not only goes unaddressed, it becomes the self-fulfilling hypothesis. By allowing that wrongful title of the bill to stand for their measurement the organization finds the “hate” it was looking for.

Christina Pushaw’s tweet is named the Flashpoint in the Online Attacks. It received over two million notices. This is used as evidence that the law has generated hatred. How? The study calls her tweet, “A key inflection point in the utilization of the terms connected with “grooming” alongside mentions of the bill.” 

Yes. The grooming and pedophile references were made to those who tried to insert or maintain objectionable material into elementary school classrooms. There was no designation as to anyone doing so being LGBT𝜋 members, it was based on the insistence alone of wanting that material presented to kindergarten-aged children. That is the center of groomer/pedophile, and not who makes that request.

In order to assert that saying “groomer” automatically means LGBT𝜋 members, that connection has to be made by those making the accusation. They then present the findings of the study in an absurd manner. They tabulated the online messages that had what they determined to be “slurs” in reference to the LGBT𝜋 community – by measuring those against the inaccurate use of the phrase “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” It was possible to link the offensive terms to the gay community by allowing the incorrectly rebranded names to be allowed, even though most of them have no connotation.

The study was completely flawed. They have to recharacterize the law incorrectly, measure the online reactions to that slanderous mischaracterization, then make the leap that anyone opposing pedophiles was referencing LGBT𝜋 (they ONLY meant LGBT𝜋), and then compile data to prove their claim by measurement using the completely inaccurate renaming of the law.

It is a very backward approach to thinking and the media act as though they know better. Klepper also uses references as support.: “Critics have said the law sends a hateful message about LGBTQ people.” The Criticism he mentions are found in a link – to an AP story inaccurately demonizing the law.