Stephen King Apologizes After His ‘Fake News’ Tweet About Ron DeSantis Gets Debunked

It must have been frightening for horror writer Stephen King to apologize for a tweet about Ron DeSantis that turned out to be pure fiction.

The novelist told his 6.7 million Twitter followers on July 6 that the popular Florida governor had signed a bill requiring Sunshine State students and professors to register their political views with the state. But when people pointed out that it was a bogus claim from an old Salon article, King first apologized, then took down the tweet.

“I deleted a tweet about Ron DeSantis requiring notice of political views of students and teachers,” King tweeted. “That really was fake news. Sorry.”

Twitter, which selectively cracks down on anything it deems misinformation, did nothing about the tweet for several days before King acted. When the writer initially apologized, he blamed his source in a statement to CNN.

“I regret having posted the headline without being more confident the story was correct,” said King, who had retweeted the old phony story with the words “I. Can’t. Even.’ “Salon is usually more reliable. Twitter is a constant learning experience, and I will try to do better.”

The law DeSantis signed, and Salon botched, requires public colleges and universities in Florida to perform voluntary annual surveys on the subject of “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity.”