A screenshot was circulated around Twitter yesterday and today which purported to show the social media site Parler had been hacked. This of course was met with glee from lefties who expressed joy at the idea of the personal information of conservatives being leaked to the dark web.

The problem?

It was fake. And a stupid fake at that.

Here's the screenshot in question:

Looks so hacky and technical, doesn't it? Well, actually that's just a near default config file for a WordPress blog. And it's from July. And nothing was on it.

Here are some swooning smug people who have no idea what they are talking about:

And here's someone who actually knows what they are talking about:

As you would assume, Twitter of course shut this misinformation campaign down fast! I mean, this was hacked materials, right? You'll remember Twitter has a very strict "no hacked documents" policy, which they employed vociferously against the New York Post when they ran that story about Hunter Biden's laptop.

No? They've let it proliferate for nearly 24 hours without some kind of warning message or suspending the offending accounts?

But that seems... inconsistent.

In a post on Parler, John Matze, the co-founder and CEO of the social media site had some measured words about the incident, saying the image of the alleged hack was "only capable of confusing a journalistic hack, not an actual hacker."

"The alleged 'Parler hack' is a screenshot from a WordPress website that has been circulated repeatedly over the past six months, despite Parler's multiple responses that we do not use WordPress products, nor WordPress databases."

Matze also took umbrage with Twitter's inconsistency on limiting misinformation:

"If Twitter continues to fact check others, they should also fact check posts such as these that spread viral misinformation. Furthermore, we don't store any personal data, user verification data is deleted on completion, and direct messages cannot send videos/images. All allegations are fake. They are just obsessed with us."

Conservative commentator and Parler investor Dan Bongino had some choice words of his own:

Aren't you glad these social media giants are here to protect us from the wrong kind of misinformation?