NBC News reporter Ben Collins on Friday sarcastically hit back at Fox News host Jesse Watters after he made a botched attempt at fact-checking Collins' work.
At issue was a story that Collins recently published in which he noted that Twitter's search bar had started offering autocomplete suggestions that promoted videos of animal cruelty, including videos of cats being put into blenders.
Shortly after Collins' report came out, the autocomplete suggestions vanished without any comment from Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
Watters, however, tried to do a search for the animal cruelty videos days after Twitter had shut them down -- and he suggested that the fact that he couldn't find them was proof that Collins was perpetuating a hoax, despite the fact that Collins' reporting appears to be the reason that the videos are no longer being promoted.
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This prompted Collins to post a video in which he sarcastically explained the concept of linear time to Fox News.
He took out a calendar and showed that people first started raising concerns about the videos on May 3rd; that he then reached out to Twitter for comment on May 11th about the videos; that Twitter shut off autosuggestions for searches shortly before Collins' story published; and then, only several days afterward, did Fox News falsely accuse Collins of concocting a hoax.
"So that's how the linear passage of time works," he said. "I hope they understand the linear passage of time but it's really hard to know nowadays."
Watch the video below or at this link.
\u201cHere's a brief explainer on the concept of "the linear passage of time" and also "basic reporting techniques" for my friends over at Fox News.\n\nI can't believe this is necessary.\u201d— Ben Collins (@Ben Collins) 1684507496
