Charlie Kirk seemed indignant. Flooding from Hurricane Helene had devastated Asheville, North Carolina and the surrounding area, killing at least 72 people in Buncombe County. But what seemed to upset the right-wing influencer most was a text message he received, believed to be from an unnamed acquaintance, claiming that employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were taking a laissez-faire attitude toward disaster relief .

“Charlie – my sources in (western North Carolina) tell me that FEMA personnel are housed in one of the nicest hotels and they only work until 5pm,” read the alleged text, which Kirk tweeted to his 3.5 on Friday million followers on X. “And they don’t work on weekends. My parents are being told that if they don’t contact them by 5pm today, they will have to wait until Monday.’

“Is this true @FEMA?” Kirk added. “Americans are dying, but FEMA workers are treating their job like it’s a government 9-5 chime?!?”

Slate reached out to FEMA, which has responded in recent days to a flood of conspiracy theories from former President Donald Trump and others about these claims. The agency hasn’t contacted us yet, but it’s a bit busy. Or we can just trust someone who texts Charlie Kirk.

This tweet format has become remarkably popular on the red internet. The formula is simple: 1) Post a screenshot of a supposedly authentic text message, 2) express outrage, 3) ask if it’s true without really caring if it’s true, and 4) don’t investigate further the case. It’s a newfangled incarnation of a classic, the chain email. Pass it on, otherwise no one will know the ‘truth’.

Elon Musk is a fan of the format and has been tweeting about FEMA incessantly for the past week. “I just received this note from a SpaceX engineer helping on site in North Carolina,” Musk wrote on Friday. The alleged note, which does not even include a screenshot of a text message or email, states that FEMA is blocking shipments to Asheville, seizing goods and claiming them as property.

“It is very real and frightening how much they have taken control to prevent people from helping,” the engineer is reported to have said. “We are now blocked from the shipments of new Starlinks coming in until we get an escort from the fire department. but that may not be enough.”

The claim: FEMA is preventing Elon Musk’s Starlink systems from helping people access the internet. On its website, the agency notes that rumors are swirling about confiscating supplies and rejecting donations: “FEMA does not accept donations and/or food from survivors or volunteer organizations. Donations of food, water or other goods are handled by volunteer organizations that specialize in storing, sorting, cleaning and distributing donated items.”

This Twitter outrage format is also used to spread election misinformation. Venture capital investor Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, tweeted that an unnamed friend of his in California once found a vacant house with 600 ballots in the mailbox. “How is this possible?” Maguire asked. He further suggested that Antifa may have hundreds of people registered to vote from a single address. (Why should Democrats rig votes in the safe state of California? The mystery continues.)

Right-wing media criticism rests on the unifying idea that journalists lie, make things up, and push stories regardless of their veracity. In the real world, professional journalists working at mainstream news outlets are required to verify information. They can’t just accept the text messages from unnamed individuals and state their truth – or credulously ask, “Is this true?” – as a way to launder inflammatory nonsense to the masses. To many on the right, reporters lie, but the random guys who text Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk are telling the truth.

These mysterious text messages from unnamed senders can easily be spoofed, while journalists are fired, disgraced and often driven to another industry for spinning false stories – and rightly so. But there are no real consequences for the influencers who engage in fear mongering and spreading lies.

Of course, they don’t really care what is true and what is not. No one who takes the facts seriously would receive a text message of questionable veracity and send it to millions of people to determine its veracity. They don’t care if it’s true; they just want you to think it is.