LeBron James calls out political ad campaign for misconstruing tweet

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Friday, August 21, 2020

LeBron James fired back at a digital ad campaign for misconstruing one of his tweets about voter suppression, tweetingFriday: "Nobody should be able to use my name (or anyone else name) to lie and deceive about the election."

James was addressing a story in The Washington Post about a website called Protect My Vote that, according to the report, has been circulating ads on Facebook that paint mail-in voting as unreliable.

One of the Facebook posts features a June tweet from James where he called polling closures in Kentucky a sign of "SYSTEMATIC RACISM and OPPRESSION." The Facebook post misconstrues the tweet, suggesting that James was linking the closures to the expansion of mail-in voting ahead of this year's general election.

A longtime adviser to James, Adam Mendelsohn, told the Post that the ads were "shameless" and "reprehensible," saying lawyers were examining the matter. James also tweeted Friday: "Not sure what we can do legally but definitely trying to figure it out!"

James has been vocal about the issue of voter suppression. In June, he helped launch a nonprofit organization called More Than a Vote, which seeks to both energize Black voters and expose voter suppression tactics, such as misinformation spread through social media.

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