Comment by icameron
So this article says > Evidently, a city full of deranged arsonists began to hyperventilate and frantically collate their kits of accelerants and blow torches. ABC7 reported at least 300 fires were started intentionally during this period…
But the link is to an ABC7 news story of one fire suspected as arson with a suspect in custody. The source cited here definitely doesn’t back up this very sensational claim of 300 arsons. People sure can make stuff up about 300 times faster than anyone can fact check it!
He's saying that ABC7 made up the number. They could have backed off on that since he wrote the article, and you wouldn't know it. News organizations edit their stories in real time now, and then people point at them and say "See! This story published that day doesn't back up what you're saying!" Besides, can't one person start a ton of separate fires? I think one person with a car could burn down a hundred houses in a day, or more.
I don't know the solution to the memory hole problem. The Internet Archive helps but they probably can't scrape news stories on an hourly basis or whatever, and many things like videos can't be scraped. Screenshots are better than nothing but not good enough.