Florida school shooting: hoaxes, doctored tweets and Russian bots spread false news
The hours after the mass shooting at a Florida high school followed a now familiar trajectory on the Internet: web sites published hastily sourced conclusions about the shooter, and pranksters shared false photos of victims and the suspect.
But the aftermath of the killing of 17 in Parkland, Fla. Wednesday took a slightly different turn this time — one reporter's tweets were doctored and retweeted to make it appear she had been asking slanted questions. Another tweet making the rounds pretended to show a popular news website's article. It had been doctored, too.
These added to the more standard fabricated stories and hoaxes that have become a common occurrence in the wake of a national tragedy.
Miami Herald reporter Alex Harris, who was covering the shooting Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had corresponded on Twitter with students at the school who were tweeting about what was happening while the shooter hadn't been apprehended. Some people criticized her for trying to communicate with the students when they were still in danger, an action she defended as essential to reporting — but acknowledges as a point of discussion.
Then there were the fake tweets. In at least two incidents, her tweets were doctored and retweeted to suggest she asked students if they had photos or videos of dead bodies or knew whether the shooter was white.
When the faked tweet about asking whether the shooter was white circulated, “it hit a nerve,” and the blowback really intensified. The doctored tweet “is a pretty solid photoshopping job” that could have fooled her, she said.
That new form of misinformation "is new," said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at The Poynter Institute. "For sure, this incident is qualitatively different."
BuzzFeed News also took to Twitter to debunk what it called a "hoax screenshot" of its site circulated on Twitter by the White House correspondent for the website Gateway Pundit. The faked report was headlined, "Why we need to take away white people's guns now more than ever."
Twitter accounts linked to Russian disinformation campaigns also promoted some of the false stories. "Parkland," the Florida city where the school is located, was among top trending hashtags pushed by a network of 600 Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence campaigns, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, part of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Other terms (NRA, shooting, Stoneman, Cruz, Nicolas and Florida) were among trending topics supported by those accounts, the site's blog said.
Hoaxes and rumors spread quickly in the aftermath of horrific incidents. Remerging Wednesday were posts naming as a suspect comedian Sam Hyde, whose photo has cropped up as the alleged shooter in previous incidents including the 2017 Sutherland Springs, Tex., church shooting and the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack. Some people posted photos of non-family members, falsely claiming they had a relative involved in the Florida shooting.
Many of these efforts are done simply "to sort of ride social media interest to prominence," Mantzarlis said. "Ever since Paris, this is our new normal. It's terrible, it's depressing and it's wrong, but it's unfortunately not surprising," he said, referring to the 2015 Paris terror attacks.
"Any time that there's a tragic event it quickly becomes politicized," said Andrew Selepak, a professor at the University of Florida and director of the graduate program specializing in social media.
Long before authorities identified the suspect as Nikolas Cruz about 7:30 p.m. ET Wednesday there were already stories on online news sites being passed along on social media about the suspect.
A story on the Gateway Pundit site reported that shooter was a registered Democrat, tying the political affiliation with an incorrect name. It later corrected it.
Hoaxes and rumors often originate on website forums 4Chan and Reddit, says Jane Lytvynenko, a BuzzFeed News reporter who has covered hoaxes in the wake of shootings, terror attacks and disasters.
"I immediately open Reddit or 4Chan and it's a little bit harrowing to watch how these hoaxes that are made up on fairly-fringe web sites make their way into the mainstream," she said.
Some of those posting misinformation want to trick reporters, while others seek to use a calamity to advance a political agenda, Lytvynenko said. Others may be seeking more followers. "It's a lot quicker to make something up than it is to report. We have to verify information with various sources. To fake something online is a ten-minute job."
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This is Russia attacking the one thing that they hate the most about us - democracy. And like the lemmings we are, our uneducated masses follow suit and retweet the fake news, some of us being low enough to create our own versions of fake news to compete with the bots. Save humanity - delete your twitter, facebook, Instagram, etc. accounts. In fact, you should probably delete your NT account, since we have a number of degenerates here who happily propagate anything that serves their warped agenda.
I'm an adult. I don't have any accounts on social media. I waste no time in staring at a handheld device because I don't have or need one. In times like this, I prefer to turn off all news account and go do some kind of physical activity or listen to music or watch videos on YouTube. I learned to do that on the sad day of 9/11.
In a way, NT is worse. It is an aggregator of the rest of the fake news propagators, and there seems to be little interest in calling fake news out for being fake news here.
Good grief, you are posting on one now.
It shows how important it is for conscientious people to choose their "trusted sources" with care. Thank you!
But you still post Krugman after his fake news report that the markets are crashing and may never recover because Trump won.
Failed projections do not equate to fake news then again I realize in your manipulated reality it is very important to often repeat your leaders mantra that everything he does not like is fake news. It serves the purpose to create mistrust by his minions and elevates those sources that sing his praises as irrefutable, history actually does repeat itself. In addition trump is still a failed businessman who only sits in the minds of the ignorant as a success because he relies on a total lack of ethics funded by a massive inheritance. the stock market can still suffer serious calamity under his manipulations as it is already become less stable that the previous seven years.
Nobody would post Krugman in good faith or give him a job shoveling his fake news.
I know nothing of him nor do I care to, doesn't change the chicken little cries about so called fake news, it is still psychological conditioning with an intended purpose, be a sheep if you chose but don't expect compassion when the when you are revealed to be a fool for it.
Can you explain this in detail, or is this statement just another uninformed opinion??
It did fall last week, didn't it? Not the crash Krugman predicted but when it started falling, people were getting a little worried. We still have 3 more years of trump, also
When will you post your first seed/article, Dean? After all these years, you should be ready, now.
... oh, wait... Never mind. I was forgetting: you're Dean...
You won't have to wait long. Tomorrow I will post a n image that is downright OBSCENE!
As I have said previously, Bf... I owe you a debt of gratitude for the important role you have played in helping me learn to master my anger.
You have surely been the most destructive of all NT members over the last five years, but for some reason Perrie lets you do whatever you like. It's her site. She makes the calls. For me to let myself be upset by your behavior would be like getting upset about the weather: I can do nothing about either.
So I have learned to consider you like a gnat. You have no weight. You are inconsequent. You buzz about. You annoy the hell out of everyone. But! ... You are impossible to swat. So we must live with you as we live with gnats.
You help me learn to be zen!
Isn't technology and BAD research GREAT ?
Seems even the likes of "Everytown for Gun Safety" inflates their "School Shooting incidences" for effect, allowing any shooting that happens just near a school as an ACTUAL "School Shooting" for their agenda. Closed schools count too. Thus their claim of 18 school shootings just this year actually being a bit off....by alot.
And that was repeated here on NT
And, and it was said here on NT that he was a right wing supremacist and that's not true either.
Are you defending White Supremacists?
Correct. That NT member used this link:
There were plenty of other sources, including Huff Po, that had already debunked the false white supremacist claim, but the NT user clearly wanted to spread "hearsay" while he told you not to spread hearsay. I almost split my side stitches open with laughter as I posted several links about his fake news.
Let's break this down.
Lucian B. Wintrich is , believe it or not , the White House Correspondent for Gateway Pundit, and no , although it should be, it is not a joke.
Jon Passantino is the Deputy News Director at the real Buzzfeed.
Just imagine the White House correspondent for a reputable news source trying to perpetrate a ridiculous hoax about a shooting tragedy on twitter.
Can't do it can you?
Gateway Pundit circulating a hoax screenshot of BuzzFeed News reporting in aftermath of FL school shooting. Let me be clear, this is fake.