Tall tales concocted for engagement farming by monetized blue-tick accounts have become commonplace on X. In some corners, it’s become a place that often feels like you could be within three tweets of stumbling upon a homophobic slur.
In that universe, a bogus post about UConn Huskies basketball head coach Dan Hurley has gained pace and distance so quickly in the space of 48 hours — even an NBA legend helped it gain traction — that a team spokesperson has described its spread as “alarming.”
The post went up in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s thrilling 103-98 come-from-behind victory for the Huskies at Providence.
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At halftime, Hurley learned he had incurred a technical foul as he made his way to the locker room. He later said on X that such an occurrence wasn’t as common as people might think.
Asked by CT Insider later to explain what happened, he said: “I was in a conversation with one of the officials, it was give and take.
“Another official that wasn’t involved in the conversation was the one who inserted himself.”
That would have been the end of it, until an X account under the name of a supposed sports journalist went on a fishing trip.
The account is verified but not authenticated or linked to any media outlet, which is by no means unusual in the Wild West of trigger-happy gunslingers on X.
The post alleged “per...
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