A Hollywood screenwriter shared a startling discovery on Twitter after a conversation with his teenage nephews and nieces: They claimed Helen Keller was either a fraud or that she never existed at all.

This absurd belief apparently arose from a meme that spread widely on TikTok, a video-sharing social media channel popular with teens.

“They believe people around (Keller) ‘pumped her up’ and wrote the book for her,” Daniel Kunka posted this week, referring to Keller’s autobiography in the exchange with his younger family members. “And apparently 15 million others on TikTok feel the same way.” He added that his nieces and nephews are “bright and well-intentioned.”

“This isn’t from lack of education or empathy,” Kunka said. “This is more about how groupthink can travel through social media like a virus until it suddenly just becomes the truth, I think.”

We’ve all seen this disturbing phenomenon become commonplace in recent years. There are still millions who believe that former President Barack Obama wasn’t born in America, or that he is a Muslim. Or that the Holocaust didn’t happen. Or that Sandy Hook was staged. Or that Donald Trump actually won the last presidential election.

But in the case of each of these lies, there are people who stand to benefit by duping others.

The Helen Keller lie strikes closer to the “flat-Earth” variety of conspiracy. Why would anyone want to spread such an easily disprovable, silly lie that doesn’t appear to benefit any particular person or ideology?

Isabella Lahoue wrote a post outing herself as a member of Gen Z who doubts Keller’s existence. She wrote that she considers the inspiring historical figure to be an “urban legend.” Lahoue attempted to explain why many in her generation share this mistaken belief.

“Maybe we don’t believe in her because we’re growing up in a world of fake news. We know the power of manipulation and lies in the media, and we’re losing faith in the sources everyone once trusted,” she wrote. “There’s too much data and too many lies circulating for us to process and believe it all.”

Bad actors have capitalized on social media as a fertile ground to spread lies and chaos.

The most perplexing thing about the rising tide of fact-deniers is that no amount of evidence can sway them. They can discount video footage, phone calls, historical records, data and science that is contrary to what they have seen on YouTube, TikTok, Reddit or far-right sources like the OAN Network.

A longtime reader once told me, “Jesus Christ himself could say Obama was a Christian, and I wouldn’t believe it.”

While it can be tempting to write off such beliefs with horrified amusement, the pandemic has driven home the deadly consequences of misinformation. COVID anti-maskers, those calling the virus a hoax or claiming it’s caused by 5G cell networks have influenced the behavior of millions, contributing to the deaths of 357,000 people in America.

The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review published a study in August investigating the spread of COVID misinformation on social media, and how content moderation by these sites can help contain the spread. The study found that mainstream sources like Fox News and the New York Post actually do more to spread conspiracy theories than alternative sources, because social media platforms filtered far fewer conspiracy posts from mainstream sites. The platforms were too slow to react to the magnitude of misinformation being spread, the researchers found.

As soon as we learn that misinformation campaigns are gaining traction on these sites, that’s when parents, educators and tech companies must act to correct it.

Helen Keller said, “Some people don’t like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions; conclusions are not always pleasant.”

Imagine the conclusions she would have drawn from her social media erasure.

Tyra Johnson had been planning for the first day of school at home for weeks. She ordered workbooks and a sling book rack online. She transformed a 50-square-foot corner of her living room into a learning nook for her preschooler, Madison, and first-grader, Meegale.

Johnson, 30, had the tablet and password ready to log in for Meegale’s virtual schooling. The newborn, Mason, would sleep in a baby carrier she would wear all day while teaching the other two. Her 10-year-old niece would also be staying with her in her north St. Louis apartment.

“I have a first-grader,” she says with a laugh, as if she can hardly believe it. She points out that her son actually reads on a grade level higher than his age.

Both of the children have been out of school since mid-March, with their mom trying to find ways to keep their education on track despite the challenges of losing her job and living in a neighborhood with frequent gunfire. She doesn’t let her children go outside the apartment to play; they spend most nights at Johnson’s mom’s house across the river, because it feels safer to her.

I’ve been checking in with her since the spring, but the first time we met in person was in late August -- the day before the new school year was scheduled to start. Meegale was trying to put together a safe out of discarded cardboard boxes, and recruited me to help him. He searched on YouTube for how-to videos for his project, then looked outside his window. A few kids were hanging out on the street below.

“Those are hoodlum kids,” he said. What made him think so, I asked?

“Because they outside by themselves. Only grownups can protect kids. Kids can’t protect themselves,” he said.

There are bullet holes in the wall in Meegale’s room and in the short hallway outside the room.

The next day started rough. The kids stayed up too late and had trouble waking up. Both came downstairs cranky and tired.

Johnson was trying to get breakfast on the table, moving the stack of delivered groceries out of the way, feeding Mason and cleaning up a few spills. A knock on the back door meant it was time to take the trash out.

She was fixing Madison’s hair with one hand and trying to call Meegale’s school with the other.

For some reason, she couldn’t log him into his virtual class. She kept getting an error message on the tablet, and a busy signal or voicemail at the school.

This day was nothing like she had planned for weeks.

She pulled out the kids’ workbooks and told them to work on the matching exercises. Meegale lay down on the floor to rest. After a few minutes of teaching, the kids were upset and crying.

“By the fact that you didn’t go to sleep,” she said to Meegale, “and you didn’t go to sleep,” she said to Madison, “this is the aftereffect. That means, the next time I tell you to go to sleep, you go to sleep, OK?”

There was a day earlier that year when Meegale got to put on his school uniform: a navy shirt and pants. His mom had agreed to let him go back for in-person learning in St. Louis Public Schools. When she picked him up after his first day there, he talked about seeing his friends and teacher again.

But then Madison caught a cold, and Johnson had a sinus infection. Her fears about contracting COVID -- despite their months of isolation -- spiked again.

After three days of in-person school, she decided it was safer for him to stay home.

They were all sitting together in their living room last month when shots fired into her apartment again.

She and Meegale hit the ground.

They packed up some clothes and left that day for her mom’s, and haven’t been back since. She’s still paying rent at the apartment they fled. She’s now working two jobs, trying to find her family a permanent new home.

Meegale still talks about the safe we tried to build.

Some families attract long traditions and happy coincidences.

The Jacksons seem to be one of those families.

Emma Ortbals Werner sewed a baptismal gown for her first grandchild, Ann, in 1951. The long white gown was trimmed with simple lace around the neckline and sleeves, with a border along the bottom. Her daughter, Alice Jackson, embroidered Ann’s name into the border.

Alice and Mark Jackson went on to have nine more children -- each of whom wore the same gown at their christenings.

By the time the youngest child had worn it, grandchildren from the eldest children weren’t far behind. The dress naturally got passed down to them.

“It was just kind of a given, I suppose,” said Mary O’Brien, the fifth in the family to wear the gown.

Mark and Alice Jackson moved to Webster Groves, Missouri, after their first child was born, and the rest of the kids grew up there. They all attended Catholic schools. Most of them have stayed in the area and raised their own families there.

Ann Paradoski, the first to wear the gown, is now 69 and still lives in Webster Groves. She said her husband wasn’t too thrilled with their son wearing a dress at his christening -- although a gown is traditional -- but he gave in.

Alice Jackson kept adding names to the border of the gown with each additional child who wore it. When a few of the names began repeating in the next generation, she added the last name.

A couple of times, the birth of twins presented a dilemma.

Patty Gaines, 61, who also wore the family gown, said it was a difficult decision when she had twins -- a boy and a girl. Her son ended up wearing the family dress because it fit him better. Her daughter wore the original slip that went under the gown and a dress her aunt had sewn years before.

The family says there hasn’t been any pressure for babies to wear the gown over the years, and that a few parents have opted out.

Mark Jackson, 68, said his wife is an exceptional seamstress and wanted to make their children’s baptism gown herself. Their first three children wore that gown, but babies four and five ended up being twins.

The Jackson family gown came in handy again.

Fortunately, none of the babies has had any sort of accident in the dress.

“The biggest thing has been keeping it white,” Paradoski said. It’s getting more frail as the years go by.

Mary O’Brien has become the de facto keeper of the dress. She’s hoping it will make it to another generation.

Incidentally, O’Brien wore her mother’s wedding dress from 1950 when she got married in 1980. Her grandmother had sewn that, too. She’s hanging on to in the hope that it might get another wear by a niece in the future.

O’Brien’s parents, Mark and Alice Jackson, discovered a surprising connection shortly before they got married. They had brought their baptismal certificates to their meeting with the priest before the wedding. It turned out that both of them were baptized at St. Margaret of Scotland Church, even though they grew up in different parts of St. Louis.

Not only that, but they had been baptized during the same ceremony on the same day.

They loved telling that story during their 62 years of marriage.

Alice Jackson died in 2016, and her husband a year later.

In January, their great-granddaughter Sophia Lauber became the 32nd baby in the family to wear the gown made by her great-great grandmother. Her father, Andy Lauber, had worn it before her, and his mom, Ellen, before him.

Sophia’s baptism took place in January at the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.

The church is in Jackson Square.