Audrey Walsworth was at her home in Naples, Fla., watching the “Today” show in the spring of 2017 when a young woman named Cassie De Pecol appeared on screen. “Meet the first woman to travel to every country in the world,” the chyron read. Ms. Walsworth, 87, was shocked. She watched as a blonde woman in her late 20s detailed her exploits and proclaimed herself, “the first woman on record to travel to every country in the world.”
Walsworth knew De Pecol’s claims that she was the first woman to travel to every country in the world was untrue for a simple reason — because Walsworth had traveled to every country on Earth, years before De Pocol ever embarked on her journey.
The truth is that De Pecol is not the first woman to travel to every country. Nor is she the first woman to travel to every country alone. She is the first, however, to claim it on social media.
De Pecol is a travel influencer who has racked up hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok. She hosts a podcast, has given a TED Talk, takes paid speaking engagements, has written a book on her travels and operates her own fitness app. But according to a lawsuit recently filed by the consumer protection group Travelers United, De Pecol has amassed this audience by repeatedly making fraudulent claims.
De Pecol didn’t just repeat these claims to grow her large audience, the lawsuit alleges. She also allegedly repeated them in order to sell products. Under the guise of being the first woman to travel...
A front-page article with the byline of veteran New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is the latest poisonous example of what I call the NGO “halo effect.” Headlined “The Silence That Mee...