The worst mass shooting in a decade at a US school sparked confusion and was used to spread hate against minorities
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Conspiracy theories, misinformation and discrimination: what was said on social media about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
By now it’s as predictable as requests for prayers and thoughts: a mass shooting leaves many dead, and soon after the massacre comes wild conspiracy theories and misinformation.
It happened after Sandy Hook, after Parkland, after the shooting at an Orlando nightclub and after this month’s attack on a supermarket in Buffalo. Within hours of Tuesday’s shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, another outbreak began in which internet users shared unsubstantiated claims about the man identified as the assailant and his possible motives.
On Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms Unsubstantiated claims quickly surfaced that the shooter was an immigrant living in the United States illegally, or a transgender person. They were accompanied by well-known conspiracy theories suggesting that the entire shooting had been staged in some way.
The claims reflect broader issues with racism or bigotry toward transgender people, and are an effort to attribute the shooting to minorities who already experience high rates of online harassment and hate crimes, according to disinformation expert Jaime Longoria.
Salvador Ramos, the Uvalde school killer in Texas
“It’s a tactic that serves two purposes: It prevents real conversations about the problem (of gun violence) and it gives people who don’t want to face reality a scapegoat, it gives them someone to blame,” said Longoria, director investigation at the Disinfo Defense League, a nonprofit group that works to combat racist misinformation.
In a matter of hours after the crime, posts went viral falsely claiming that the shooter lived in the country illegally. Some users added colorful details like he was “running from Border Patrol”.
“He was an illegal alien wanted for murder from El Salvador,” read a tweet with hundreds of retweets and likes. “This is blood on Biden’s hands and should never have happened.”
Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott (REUTERS/Marco Bello)
The man who authorities say fired the shots, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, is a US citizen, he told a news conference on Tuesday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Other social media users used images of innocent netizens to falsely identify them as the assailant and claim that was transgender. On the 4Chan forum, users shared the photo and commented on a plan to portray the assailant as transgender, without any evidence for it.
A tweet that was later deleted showed a photo of a trans woman with a green bottle next to her mouth, who was looking at the camera and with headphones in one ear.
“LAST MINUTE: THE IDENTITY OF THE SHOOTER HAS BEEN REVEALED”, he stated the user, who used a pejorative term to state that the aggressor was a trans woman with a YouTube channel.
While the relatives and friends of the victims expressed their pain for what happened
None of that was true. The image actually showed a 22-year-old trans woman named Sabrina, who lives in New York. Sabrina, who asked that her last name not be published for privacy, confirmed to The Associated Press that the photo was hers and said it was not related to the alleged YouTube account.
< p class = “paragraph”>Sabrina said she has received harassment on social media, especially messages accusing her of being the perpetrator of the shooting. She responded to several posts spreading the image asking for the posts to be deleted.
“This whole ordeal is just appalling,” Sabrina toldAP.< /p>
Another widely circulated photo showed a trans woman wearing a Coca-Cola sweatshirt and a black skirt. A second image showed the same woman in a black NASA T-shirt and red skirt. None of those images showed the shooter, but instead a Reddit user named Sam, who confirmed her identity to APon Wednesday. AP does not use Sam’s last name to protect his privacy.
“It’s not me, I don’t even live in Texas” , Sam wrote in a post on Reddit.
Authorities have not released any information about the assailant’s sexuality or gender identity.
Paul Gosar, Arizona lawmaker (Bill Clark/Pool via REUTERS/File)
Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar included the two baseless claims about Ramos in a single, now-deleted tweet, in which he also misspelled his Name. “He is a leftist transsexual illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos,” Gosar tweeted Tuesday night.
Gosar’s office did not respond to a message seeking comment.
In some cases, misinformation about mass shootings or other events is spread by well-intentioned users trying to help. In other cases, it may be the work of scammers trying to start fraudulent fundraisers or draw attention to their website or organization.
Then there are the trolls who seem to do it for fun.
(Shutterstock)
Fringe communities like 4chan often seize on mass shootings and other tragedies as an opportunity to wreak havoc, mislead the public and promote harmful messages, according to Ben Decker, founder and CEO of digital research consultancy Memetica.
“It’s very intentional and deliberate for them to celebrate these incidents to influence what the main conversations are as well,” Decker said. “There is a nihilistic desire to prove oneself in this kind of community by successfully fooling the public. So if you can lead a campaign that leads to a result like this, you gain a certain credibility in the group.”
For the communities that bear the brunt of these vicious attacks on Internet, however, false accusations lead to fear of violence and further discrimination.
Something as seemingly innocuous as a transphobic comment on social media can trigger an act of violence against a trans person, explained Jaden Janak, a doctoral student at the University of Texas and a professor at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies.
“These children and adults who were murdered yesterday were simply living his life,” Janak said Wednesday. “They did not know that yesterday would be their last day. And similarly, as trans people, that’s a fear we have all the time.”
(With information from AP)