Fact Check

Did Maxine Waters Use a Picture of the Tide Receding as Proof of Climate Change?

An account parodying the Congresswoman sent the tweet in response to President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

Published June 2, 2017

Claim:
Maxine Waters used a picture of the tide receding as proof of climate change.

Shortly after President Trump announced on 1 June 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, politicians such as a Maxine Waters took to Twitter to voice their disagreement. So when a parody account posing as Waters sent out a tweet using the receding tide as proof of climate change, many on social media mistook it for a genuine message from the U.S. Representative:

Parody accounts often use a combination of letters to make it appear as if the Twitter handle spells a person's name. In this case, the Twitter handle appears to spell out Maxine Waters, but if you look closely, you can see two Vs instead of a W in the representative's last name. Waters's real Twitter handle is @MaxineWaters, not @MaxineVVaters.

Maxine Waters's real Twitter also has a blue checkmark meaning that Twitter has verified that it is authentic. The parody account, not surprisingly, is not verified. The blue check mark also appears on all of Waters's tweets:

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.