British Tabloid Gets Mocked For Deceitful Front Page About Muslims

It seems like one in five tweets on Monday has been about the glaringly misleading front page of The Sun.

One of the most read newspapers in Britain twisted poll results for Monday's front page story claiming that 20 percent of the country's Muslims had "sympathy for jihadis." One problem, among several, with the claim is that the survey didn't actually ask respondents for their feelings about jihadis. Instead, it asked if they have "sympathy with young Muslims who leave to UK to join fighters in Syria."  Such wording could include volunteers traveling to Syria to fight the jihadis.

The methodology used by The Sun's polling company also may have failed to properly identify Muslims, because the pollster targeted people who supposedly had easily identifiable Muslim surnames. Other pollsters told The Guardian that might not capture a representative slice of Muslim adults.

Experts poked additional holes in The Sun's story as the day wore on. Readers lampooned the tabloid for fuzzy math and hyperbole. Tweets using the hashtag #1in5Muslims were popular throughout the day.