Fighting with Facebook conspiracy theorists

Controversy hits my favourite social media weirdos

Over the weekend, you might have read a rather alarming article about an EV which went on a little misadventure in a Liverpool shopping centre.

The story, as it was originally posted on the 9 News Facebook page, was that a BYD display vehicle was charging when suddenly the battery EXPLODED which then caused the car to reverse into the makeup section of Myers. 

This photo accompanied the article: 

Now I’m no Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, or Poirot. When I visit sleepy villages everyone seems to be, and stay, very much alive. As a result, I have solved no mysteries or murders. 

But looking at this photo, I thought something didn’t quite add up. After all, if a car has exploded, shouldn’t it look a bit more…. explode-y? A big of charred metal, perhaps? Some smoke maybe? 

I also did wonder how an exploding battery would cause the vehicle to uncontrollably reverse. Unless they’d programmed the car with a sense of its own peril, I couldn’t see how one would lead to the other.  

This extremely questionable post sat on the 9 News Facebook page for quite sometime until (I’m guessing) a journo received a very cranky call from someone in the BYD office. 

Turns out the EV didn’t explode, nor was it even charging. 

What happened allegedly involved a 14-year-old boy who had been at the wheel of the display car at the time. The car hit a glass panel in front of the vehicle, and then was then put into reverse where it smashed into the Myer. Sadly a couple of bystanders were injured in the kerfuffle. 

This is, of course, a completely different story to what 9 News originally posted. A quick phone call to the centre management before making the explosion claim might have cleared things up. At the very least if they put their thinking caps on real tight, they might have seen that the explosion was unlikely considering the condition of the car. 

Either way, the post was updated with the correct information so there was no real harm done. All we witnessed was another fleeting example of sloppy journalism. Right? 

Wrong. God you’re so, so, so wrong. 

What we actually witnessed was a dastardly coverup by the lizard-people in charge of EV policy at the Government. The REAL story is that the battery exploded. But they don’t WANT us to know that. So they MADE 9 News change their post. 

How do I know? 

Well, I’ve been reading about it on my favourite Facebook page ‘Shit Cars of Australia’. 

I came across this group when I was writing my article about the Leyland P76. I joined the community expecting some light-hearted banter about all the silly cars that had made it to our shores.

What I actually stumbled on was an unhinged group of EV-hating conspiracy theorists with over 75,000 members. 

The main activity on the Shit Cars of Australia group is sharing jokes about EVs. These posts are funny in the way that a pediatric cancer ward is funny. Which is to say, not at all. 

There are simply too many examples to put in one newsletter, but this post nicely sums up the general tone: 

I’ll give this to Stuart, it takes some impressive mental gymnastics to turn a hackneyed take on American café culture into a takedown of EV drivers. 

But on the day that BYD had it’s little shopping centre incident, all the usual online Shit cars of Australia frivolities were halted. This was the holy grail. Not only was this accident EV-related, it was a Chinese-made car.   

The Channel 9 New Facebook post was shared eight times in just a few hours. When the copy changed to remove references to an explosion, the herd was angered. 

You heard it here, people. Chris Bowen picked up the phone, called the 9 News social media team, heavied the police, heavied witnesses and had the story changed. 

One brave fellow thought that, maybe, 9 had just got their story wrong. He attempted to reason with people in the comments.

That sounds like EV-sympathiser talk to me, lads. 

A robust discussion ensued where the word ‘champ’ was thrown around a lot. Frustrated, Scott said that the people on this group were gullible for swallowing up misinformation.

Unknowingly, Scott had left himself vulnerable to attack. 

What a terrible day to be literate. 

It’s hard to come back from a quip this scathing, this Shakespearian in its wit and composition. 

But Scott isn’t one to back down. 

UNO REVERSE CARD! Nice recovery, Scott. 

Were this an actual debate, someone would be declared a winner. But because I (and now you – sorry) have read the words ‘dad’s man juice’, I declare that, actually, everyone loses. 

You, me, the English language, humanity as a whole. All of us poorer for the above exchange having ever happened.

Maybe we shouldn’t have EVs. The more fossil-fuel burning cars we have on the roads, the faster this rock becomes too hot to live on, and the sooner the universe will no longer have to suffer through internet fights. 

I think we’ve got a few years left yet, unfortunately, so you’d better get to work. Have a lovely week!

Steph