How a false story about an anti-Trump band went viral

This is a guest piece by Jacqueline Sweet, an independent investigative journalist whose work has been published in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, POLITICO and The Intercept. Follow her on Bluesky. 

On Tuesday morning, a huge scoop was consuming social media. The story went like this: Elon Musk’s X had banned legendary Irish-American punk rock band The Dropkick Murphys from his platform on Monday night after the lead singer made fun of Donald Trump and Musk at a concert. Soon it was the talk of Bluesky.

Typical Elon behavior, right? Well, no—because it didn’t happen.

The Dropkick Murphys, a band that has been critical of Trump for years, performed a show in Boston on Sunday. After lead singer Ken Casey spotted a MAGA hat in the audience, he called it a sign of a cult member—and dubbed Musk’s signature black version of the cap the “Elon Musk True Nazi edition.” At 2am Monday morning, popular liberal podcasters Meidas Touch shared a clip on X of Casey’s MAGA jabs, and later that morning a small X account with just 1,600 followers shared the clip with this commentary: “HOLY SHIT THEY SUSPENDED DROPKICK MURPHYS FUCK YOU @elonmusk FUCK YOU @potus.” 

The rumor that the Irish-American punk rockers were banned on St. Patrick’s Day of all days was deliciously outrageous, and naturally it spread like wildfire.

By the following morning, at least seven news stories centering on this claim had been published. As soon as I saw the story, however, I was immediately suspicious. It didn’t feel right. That isn’t Musk’s MO. And I should know–I was suspended from X for reporting a news story he didn’t like. So what happened?

Prior bias towards Musk appeared to fuel the flames of the internet rumor about the band’s suspension, but I knew he rarely (if ever) outright suspends accounts without reason. He applies arbitrary rules inconsistently, usually around “doxxing” or other X terms of service. But suspending a band’s account because of their comments at a concert should have raised doubts for reporters who are paid to observe these things. To be sure, it was a huge story if true. If Musk was banning X users simply for political speech, we’d be in new territory. So I started looking into it.

I saw that an X user named Walt Wang, who often contributes to X’s Community Notes to debunk often-MAGA leaning conspiracy theories, had already checked the Internet Archive and messaged me to alert me that The Dropkick Murphys’ account was banned as early as June 2024. I reproduced Wang’s findings, and then began to doubt myself: Surely all these news stories weren’t published solely based on influencers claiming on social media that the band was banned Monday night. The band must have confirmed it somewhere.

Nope.

I scoured all the reporting and could not find a single piece with a clear source. The reporters hadn’t heard from the band, and the band had not spoken of a suspension this week.

The Tennessee Holler, a website that calls itself “an audience-supported progressive news site with a series of active social media feeds that seek to amplify voices,” and solicits reader contributions, posted a “shot, chaser” meme on their X account at 3:45 pm, implying the band was suspended from X because of the concert comments. They also posted the meme to Bluesky a few minutes later, where it got 12k likes and more than 3k shares.

Forbes appeared to be first news site to repeat the claim as news at 6:15 am. “X Suspends Dropkick Murphys After Band Calls Out Concertgoer’s MAGA Hat,” the Forbes headline read. “The band’s X account was suspended on Monday night and the page now displays a message saying the platform suspends accounts that ‘violate the X Rules,’” the story claimed with no source. There was no indication the reporter contacted the band or X, or checked the Internet Archive.

Once the Forbes story hit, many other outlets followed suit. Variety, Billboard, NewsNation, Mediaite, The Patriot Ledger, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and several smaller music-focused outlets all published articles claiming the band’s account was suspended after the Sunday show. 

The Variety version early Tuesday morning at least included evidence that the reporter had reached out to the band and X, but didn’t receive replies. The story still included the unsubstantiated rumor. 

When I saw the band had not corroborated, I posted my findings on Bluesky at 10:29am on Tuesday. Then I emailed the band at 11:19, easily finding an email for a PR contact. I received a reply exactly four minutes later.

I posted the band’s statement on Bluesky at 11:34 am in which Casey clarified that they had never been banned on X, but rather quit as a gesture of disgust with Musk in 2022 ”when Elon was only half a Nazi.” An imposter then took their old handle, and the band was later able to get that account removed—which is why it now appears as suspended.

Then the flurry of corrections hit. Instead of entirely retracting a story based on a false premise, the outlets all tried to salvage their stories. If I hadn’t posted the facts publicly on Bluesky, would these news outlets have simply “dirty edited,” i.e. changed the stories with no explanation or mea culpa?

Over the next couple of hours, Forbes, Variety and Billboard edited their stories with corrections. They included the same statement the band had sent me. NewsNation was the last outlet to fix the false story: They updated their version early Thursday morning. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one of the outlets who repeated the false story, is in the midst of a multi-year strike by its journalists. Their story was edited—changing the headline from “Dropkick Murphys' X account suspended after singer criticizes Elon Musk” to “Dropkick Murphys respond to suspended account on X” at some point—but without any editor’s note or explanation.

To their credit, some outlets waited to confirm the facts before running with the story: Rolling Stone and Lead Stories, a fact checking site, were looking into the claims at the same time I was.

The life cycle of this fake news story looks a lot like how fake pro-MAGA stories have been laundered into the news in recent years: A rumor spreads on X, then a news outlet repeats it with no verification, and then people cite the news story as proof of the rumors’ veracity. Because this was first reported by a reputable American news source, other outlets felt comfortable believing it and propelling it forward. But if we can’t get a simple thing like this correct, why should readers trust us on actual life or death matters?

Even after the band’s clarification and the retractions, misinformation about this story remains. The Boston Globe published a story on Wednesday that still managed to fundamentally misunderstand what happened, and mislead readers: “Yes, the Dropkick Murphys got suspended from X. No, it’s not because of Elon Musk or Donald Trump criticism,” announced the headline. The Tennessee Holler’s post is still up on both Bluesky and X, allowing the myth to persist. 

The question remains: If a story falls in the woods and no journalist is there to fact-check it, can we really say it didn’t happen?