Twitter users were stunned by a Community Note recently added to a seven-month-old tweet about a man’s first date.
The tweet in question was a response to someone asking, “What was your craziest first date?”
“Invited a Colombian woman on vacation without meeting her first – now we’re getting married,” the man replied in December.
Under the seemingly benign tweet, however, is a new footnote that left many Twitter users stunned.
“The user who posted this tweet is now charged with murdering the woman in question,” reads the note.
The note also linked to a Daily Mail article with additional information about the charges against John Poulos, who posted the tweet on his acocunt @ptrain67, which has not tweeted since November 2022.
The divorced father of three is facing charges of aggravated femicide and concealment of evidence in connection to the Jan. 22 murder of Valentina Trespalacios, whose remains were found inside a suitcase in a dumpster.
Prosecutors in Colombia are seeking more than 35 years in prison.
Community Notes “aim to create a better-informed world by empowering people on Twitter to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading Tweets,” according to Twitter.
But it appears that nobody was ready for that kind of context.
One user called it “one of the wildest” Community Notes ever, noting that “it adds a lot of context.”
“Twitter went next level with @CommunityNotes,” commented another.
A cursory review of John Poulos’ Twitter page shows he retweeted controversial influencer Andrew Tate, who is currently under house arrest in Romania while facing rape and human trafficking charges.
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*First Published: Jul 19, 2023, 8:21 am CDT
Katherine Huggins
Katherine Huggins is a New York-based journalist and freelance contributor to the Daily Dot’s tech and politics section. She helps cover the United Nations for the Japanese newspaper Mainichi and previously reported on the 2022 midterm elections for Marketwatch. Her work has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, OpenSecrets and more.
