As you may have noticed overnight and into the morning on Wednesday, Oprah Winfrey's name was trending on Twitter due to the spread of a false claim that she had been arrested.
A cursory stroll through the related tweets shows that, as Ava DuVernay pointed out, the trending appears to have been kicked off by trolls and bots repeating false claims about Oprah having her home raided and being arrested for sex trafficking. Oprah was quick to respond to these false claims, tweeting that she was currently among many across the U.S. who are currently self distancing amid COVID-19 containment efforts.
"Just got a phone call that my name is trending," she said. "And being trolled for some awful FAKE thing. It's NOT TRUE. Haven't been raided, or arrested."
A Page Sixreport adds a bit more context to the spread of the false claims, stating that the initial rumors seemingly originated "in an online message forum for teenagers and adults with too much time on their hands."
