It happens every time. A terrible event happens, and despicable conspiracy theorists/propaganda agents respond by spreading terrible lies. It’s happening right now with the survivors of the Parkland shooting, a concerted effort to discredit anyone who criticizes the status quo by lying about the event.
Some students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School immediately took to social media calling on President Donald Trump and Congress to do something about guns and calling out commentators like Fox’s Tomi Lahren for saying now wasn’t the time to talk about guns. David Hogg, a student journalist who interviewed students on lockdown during the shooting, made several TV appearances demanding leaders take action. Another student, Emma Gonzalez, called out the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the legislators who do its bidding. Melissa Falkowski, a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, went on CNN calling on Congress to do more to “to end gun violence, to keep our kids safe.” Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter was killed, screamed at President Trump on CNN to “do something.” Student survivors are organizing a march on Washington D.C..
And now, Parkland survivors are targets for fake news campaigns, conspiracy theories, harassment and doxxing. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has already suggested that the entire shooting is a false flag, which implies that all of the survivors are actors in an elaborate hoax. As survivors speak up, there are already attempts to attack and discredit them individually.
There are tells that let you know these sources are lying to you. These words are dead giveaways: False flag and Crisis actor. You see someone babbling about that, they’re simply awful, dishonest, crazy people. Another giveaway is when they start piecing together photos of the victims or the crime scene and try to match them to other photos they’ve crudely googled to pretend that the actual victims were actually in Hawaii or something, when all they’ve demonstrated is that people resemble other people. Just shut them down.
There are some people/sources that have negative credibility.
Alex Jones
Tucker Carlson
Fox & Friends
Gateway Pundit
NRATV
Lucian Wintrich
Dinesh D’Souza
r/theDonald
4chan
Anyone with the last name “Trump”
And many more. One additional problem, though, is that Twitter has become the perfect propaganda machine — anyone can manipulate it to automate broadcasting thousands of tweets promoting the lies invented by other disinformation agents, masking their origin and making sound like they have a broad base of support.
This story is being run by "Gateway Pundit".
The first 10 accounts to retweet this story tweeted 42,654 times collectively in January. This is 1375 tweets a day.
Aka automated/contributing to computational propaganda. Being run to smear a kid who is mad he got shot at in school pic.twitter.com/5xP9erj58p— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) February 21, 2018
Information has become a tool to be twisted and manipulated by the right wing. We should be afraid. This is how democracies fall.
These people who try and pretend that gun violence is all an act REALLY annoy me! Not a single lick of logic or common sense. For one, if the gouvernment REALLY wanted to take away their guns, they just would. Period. They don’t need a staged massacre to do it, which you might notice NEVER takes away guns or even a meaningful discussion anyway.
But really now, I asked once for them to actually describe how it was faked. How the students were enrolled all year knowing that someday they will be called upon to play victim. I asked them how they coordinated the entire crew of victims to remember to bring their blood squibs that day and await the signal…how they got the paramedics to fake the body wounds, AND how they paid off the families to fake remain distraught over their loved one’s death the rest of their lives, while simultaneously getting the real students to disappear completely in the Internet age, new name, new identity, abandon their families…
…all so a gouvernment can take guns it already has the means and motivation to??? Who’s living in the paranoid delusion here???
Needless to say, I never did get a good reply, but it shows how they can’t even use basic common sense in their own scenario.
I saw a mention on CNN last night (at the gym (CNN and FAUX were on side by side — interesting) that Russian bots and tweeters were spreading disinformation in both directions. And we have a President who has abdicated his responsibilities to the country in order to protect and enrich himself. Pathetic.
The right winger in my office stated, yesterday, that it must be Russian money paying actors to pretend to be students. They all, according to him, looked too old to be in high school. And besides, high school students can’t vote so why would they try to do anything political.
Things are getting worse. Sad.
The Russian fake news bots have been pushing the conspiracies according to this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/technology/russian-bots-school-shooting.html
@1 stop assuming the bad agents are stupid. That’s patronizong, and they’re not. They know damn well what the truth is, and they’re lying. They’re lying because they’re dedpicable subhuman dogs. They’re positively giddy about it, too – if they did this during columbine their career would have been instantly buried by public opinion, but Trump’s purpose is to destroy constraints on acceptable behavior. “Can we attack child shooting victims now? Holy shit we can! Heeheeheehee” they don’t want anything meaningul, just to go ad low as possible for their own perverse amusement.
When you swing your sword at their smokescreen it just plays into their hands. Aim at the man behind the curtain. Make them pariahs.
Uploading stuff to twitter this morning, I noticed the hashtag #TwitterLockOut, and the lunatic fringe is having an attack over losing “thousands of followers” overnight, because I guess a bunch of bots were purged. The conspiracy theories are flying fast and furious.
This is one of the latest right wingnut excuses for not doing anything about routine mass shootings.
It’s also a bunch of lies.
1. The source cchrint is a Scientologist front. Enough said.
2. They have no way of knowing this anyway.
It’s simply a lie.
The fundie xians also dug out their all purpose excuse for everything and dusted it off. (It’s millennia old by now.)
Satan and the demons. Not enough thoughts and prayer. Jesus hates us because of the Affordable Care Act and DACA.
Being a fundie means never, ever having to take responsibility for actions, events, their lives, or anything.
Contemptible disinformation…because: assholes. The absolute crud of humanity.
There is no bottom to how low they will go.
Better add billo the clown orielly to the list .
A typical ‘conservative’ retort: “Why would Russia do that? What’s their motive? That’s fake news!”
The motive is simply the destabilization of democracy in general, and its militarily and economically most powerful exponent, the United States in particular. Even they were startled and all giddy at how easy it was to install the Drumpf.
And who are the principle enablers? Certain wealthy folk with certain ‘business interests’ – a kind of irresponsible asshole.
I wished there was a hell so it could have a special place reserved for these people
Strange how you notice the systemic collapsing of democratic norms but you still seem to think banning guns is a top priority.
Sure seems like you actually don’t think one or the other.
Mike Smith @13: Can you rewrite that so it makes any sense whatsoever?
Says the person thinking that me not watching anything by Woody Alan is a terrible injustice that must be addressed.
I was curious, so I went to their website. Under the “about us”, they say:
Aaaaaaahhhhh, run away!!
Please enlighten us with what our top priority should be, since banning .223/.5.56, high-capacity magazine, semi-auto rifles is not.
Mike Smith, #13
Why is that strange?
Saad @18:
Because Mike didn’t tell us it was an acceptable goal.
New York Times
Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate.
Let’s see, this is the same newspaper that report that a Russian cyberattack took out part of the electrical gird in New York State and the same newspaper that reported on Iraq’s weapons of mass distruction and on the yellowcake fiasco? On a topic like this I’d have more trust in the Daily Fail.
“Why would Russia do that?
Russia, orcs, Mordor. Aghhh!
Why would Russia want to completely destabilize the most militarily powerful and most aggressive country in the world? One that has invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, produced ISIS and done a pretty good job of turning Libya into a failed state though much of NATO helped with Libya. And now is illegally invading Syria.
A country that is known to have swarms of mad generals just itching to attack Iran , crazy right-wing, warmongering politicians (BTW, how is Senator McCann?) and idiot religious fundies, none of whom seem to have realized that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is not the same country as Russia. Probably none of them but the generals have even looked at a map.
If anything, Russia wants a stable, reasonably sane, US administration that is willing to deal on a rational and reasonably honest basis with it.
@ Oggie. #2
My response would have been: “Yeah, well, witnessing senseless murder will do that.”
well that sounds like a stretch but I do think they (or should I say Putin) have reason to be concerned about an aggressive west in particularly the US. I suspect that a US just not involved very much with the world would be enough. A US not seen as “the Leader of The Free World” seems with the current administration seem a distinct possibility..
uncle frogy
Called it. They’d rather believe in lies than have their penis substitutes taken away.
@13 Would you not classify the constant mass shootings in America a form of erosion of democratic norms?
A brief glance at history shows that whatever Russia is called, they have a habit of playing both sides, and switching allegience. I highly doubt that Putin, a KGB officer, wouldn’t be delighted to see his life long arch rival brought low simply because of machismo. Controlling the oil resources is the actual power struggle, and the ass-face in chief is clearly a useful tool.
@gil
It’s not my fault if you continue to willfully misunderstand my point from that thread. I don’t consider your refusal to watch eAllen films an injustice. Indeed my arguments in the thread depending on it being viewed as a legitimate form of discrimination.
@17
The peaceful if possible dissolution of the US of A as a single body politic. Any plan that depends on finding common ground with Trumpkins is doomed to failure. If no peace possible we must defend ourselves.
@Saad
Because it comes accross as recommending Jews focus on getting guns under control in 1920’s Germany. From the various posts but Professor Myers we are to believe there’s a nontrivial amount of Americans that have facsistic tendencies at best or at worst there’s already a quasi-fascist in the white house. But sure let’s disarm. The disconnect is so obivous I can’t believe the center left actually believes both.
I hear the showers are at least warm.
@23
Yes I do. But you don’t disarm when you can’t trust anybody else to.
We’re stuck in a Hobbesian trap.
here’s a thought for you.
when was the last time americans rose up, used their guns, and tried to overthrow their own government?
do you see ANY real signs of that happening now?
no, you do not.
instead, you see americans MURDERING EACH OTHER with those weapons.
ban the weapons?
fuck yes.
now run along and take your failed logic back to your man-cave.
there is a HUGE industry in Russia that hires locals in many cities to spread misinformation. really. there were plenty of out of work Russians that opted for these jobs, got disgusted, and left. Evidently there is both an arm that spreads misinformation to americans, where those people participating need to speak perfect english to enhance their credibility… AND an arm dedicated to doing the same thing for Russians themselves.
Pravda never died. It just went online as fake commenters.
@ Mike Smith
If the State wants you, the State will get you.
At best, you might take a couple of agents with you if you have a gun, but I can assure you that having a large personal arsenal isn’t going to give the State so much as a moment’s pause if they want you. They’ll just send more agents. The more you fight the harder they’ll come after you. If you so much as point a gun in their general direction, they’ll almost certainly shoot you dead then and there. Even if they don’t, they’ll toss you down a deep, dark hole for your impertinence.
What’s more is the fact that the more (and more lethal) weapons you have the higher on the list you’ll be, if they should ever start rounding people up for mass extermination. If they decide to go that route, they won’t even bother sending in troops. They’ll just do what they’ve been doing to brown people over there for decades, now: high-tech aerial bombardment. Your gun(s) isn’t going to do a damn thing against a drone/smart-bomb/cruise-missile.
But, here’s the thing- my first line isn’t necessarily true. There are ways to survive, and even ways to fight that don’t mean certain death. The problem is in your thinking that the world is an action movie. Guns might, at some point, play a role in either survival or fighting, but 99.99% of the time all they’re going to do is make you a target.
If your goal is simple survival, then your best bet is to make sure the State can’t find you. Study the methods the State uses to find people, then study the best ways to counter them. I guarantee that none of the evasion techniques involve shooting people. Guns are noisy, smelly, and too easy to trace.
And if you want to fight and survive, then you either have to learn how to sabotage the State without being detected, or fight in the most visible way possible, all without alienating most possible allies. That means no shooting/blowing up public areas. Both ways carry more risk than simply hiding, but as long you aren’t having gunfights with federal agents you have a chance of survival.
You’re treating guns like security blanket, but the monsters out there aren’t going to be scared off just because you can make a loud noise and threaten a couple of their countless disposable pawns. Your brain is far and away your best weapon. Use it.
vucodlak,
Not quite there yet, but we are in the early years of C21.
Seen this video? Killer drone arms, articial intelligence an increasingly real fiction, Social and Smart Phone Facial Recognition, Smart swarms, Warning !
Maybe, just *~maybe~*, Molly “don’t listen to (((Masha Gessen)))” McKew is not the best person to quote in an article about Nazis in the news.
Mickey,
If you go for nonsense Nazi comparisons, do learn a bit about Germany in the 1920s.
Oh my god, a delusional wannabe hero.
I must say that there are few words for somebody being so contemptible to tell kids to shut up about being killed in their schools because of your delusions of a great armed uprising.
What exactly is the difference between you and a Trumpkin.
@26 and @28
Actually my primary concern isn’t the state. I have certain benchmark of illiberal actions that of the state crosses I’m shooting myself in the head as I will not suffer the indignity of a concentration camp.
My primary concern is the explosion of hate groups and emboldened ones at that. Charlottesville should not have happened the way it did but the left literally showed up to a gun fight with protests sign.
Someone like Richard Spencer and I are not in the same body politic. We are, to be blunt, at war. If Spencer is ever within 50 ft or so of me I will be going to jail because punching him in the face is the most mild action I will do. This may be a crime according to the US but it’s not unjust. Force and fraud in war are the cardinal virtues.
So I have seen plenty of armed fights between the alt right and antifa (black boc) and because the left lacks a spine the alt right is winning.
Those fuckers are not my countrymen. I owe them nothing.
@Gil
It’s not *my* comparison. I have heard multiple people on the center left make it. Professor Myers literally spoke at a no fascismUSA rally days after the election. It’s simply incoherent to say the Republicans are being nazified but let’s get the guns. No get the Nazis out of power then get the guns.
The kids are naive. They and you are confusing ideal theory with what is needed now. It has nothing to do with armed insurrection per se but I will not disarm when a white supremacist walked into a school a killed 17 people as an act of terrorism. By all apparently lights that is what happened.
I’m not catergorically against gun control. Indeed *ideally* Pvt ownership of guns would be barred.
But now is not the time for that conversation. Not when we were a couple of thousands votes from having an unrepentant Christian Reconstructionist in the Senate.
The difference between me and Trumpkin is a fear people based on their actions and ideology not on color or national origin.
But nice invocation of horseshoe theory.
Mike Smith,
Step outside and observe that civilization has not yet fallen.
Hint: Mad Max is not a documentary.
Mickey
Oh cool, a martyr worshipper, at least when the dying happens to other people.
One person died in Charlottesville. She was killed by a car. Not a gun. There is some credible evidence that right wing groups were hoping to lay carnage to the left. Is that what you want? Lots of people dying? Go fuck yourself.
Really? Please provide some evidence that people are comparing the situation now to Germany in the 1920s, when Hitler was in prison (1924), Mein fucking Kampf mostly unpublished for most of the decade (1926) and his happy little party meaningless (2,8% in 1928).
I know you’re a complete idiot, but at least use Wikipedia before dragging down everybody else with your stupidity.
They’re fucking not. They have just been through something horrible and they have a much better idea of what happened than you do. They are smart, eloquent and passionate.
Which is exactly what? More guns (like your dear leader suggested)? More dead kids as a price you’re willing to pay?
And your fucking replacement for a brain did what exactly to safe even one kid?
Yeah, and you’re the one telling thousands of potential voters (many of those kids, their parents and family members) that they should sit down, shut up, listen to their betters (you) and do as they are told. That sounds like a winning strategy.
Again, you are beyond contempt.
Mike Smith,
Out of curiosity, do you speak Russian?
@35
Het
@Gil
When I google “Trump is a Nazi” I get over 3 million hits (32 million without the quotes). Now obviously not all of those hits are going to be making the comparison but a shit ton are. More to the point it was an entire cottage industry about the comparison around the election. The New York Times ran a book review about a Hitler biography without mentioning Trump by name and enough people got the implied parallel that like The national review complained about it. In short the comparison is such common knowledge I’m not bothering with links.
Second, holy shit I gave you too much credit. I cited the 20’s instead of the 30’s because I don’t believe Trump is actually a fascist. I’ve always been careful to say things like quasi-fascist or fascistic. My point wasn’t that the US gov’t is run by fascist. (if I thought this I wouldn’t be commenting here) my point is the weakness of the democratic norms in the Weimar Republic displayed in the 20’s are in full display and there’s an infant totalitarian movement present. That’s it. If I thought the USA was equal to Germany of the 30’s I would have already killed myself. It would be asinine to recommend Jews ever disarm in the intrawar period in Germany even if the Nazi never came to power.
Third, only one person died at Charlotteville(via car) that’s true but several dozen were shot at and had their rights violated by armed thugs (with some help of the cops) because the left still hasn’t woken up to the danger we are in. I want effective resistance to the alt-right, not this hippie “love trumps hate” bullshit. Either the left should have arrived armed to bash some fucking skulls in or virtually no one showed up other than to take pictures and get the fuckers exposed. People like you who insist on “counter protesting” are going to only get good people killed. Richard Spencer and his ilk cannot be reasoned with. they are gone. Your only options are fight, die, isolate or separate. That’s it. You can’t reason with cancer. Just like are Berkeley the moderates on the left got good people injured because they don’t realize we are in a street fight.
The kids are completely naïve, and so are you apparently. They are trying to change a problem democratically which can’t be fixed democratically. 97% of voters favor universal background checks (I don’t at the moment). That’s never happening. The US of A is barely a democracy and for some parts of it (N. Carolina especially) it’s not a democracy; The kids efforts are all sound and fury showing nothing. The republic is dead. It’s hollow corpse that’s only animated by inertia.
More to the point there are a ton of ideological groups that I don’t trust to respect my basic right to not be attacked. Until such time I am assured that Christian reconstructionist are unable to seize power in the place I’m at I’m not willing to disarm.
I’ve repeatedly said what I think the main political objective of the left should be: separation by any means necessary and helping people get out of Trumpland. If your family are Trump voters break off all contact. If you are in a red state move. If you are in a blue state start trying to succeed and boycott red state economically. When NY is no longer formally in the body politic with AL or Mississippi then I’m open to doing away with pvt. ownership of guns. Because here’s the thing Californian people of color, queer people and woke white people are in face at war with the heartland. It’s time to act upon this reality. (and the sort of politics I follow saved tens of thousands the last time the world was staring fascism in the face. so fuck you on that point).
Also, heh. I don’t care about electoral politics Why the fuck would I? They are pointless. That you think it’s a point against me that I’m turning off thousands voters is hysterical. Anyone who votes after 2016 is a god damn fool. And monster.
but preach person preach if you say love trumps hate enough time I’m sure Spencer will only kill you.
@33
I do you know I don’t leave in Detroit?
@33
How do you know I don’t live in Detroit?
(ignore 37)
Mike Smith is babbling again?
Shut the fuck up, Mike Smith.
Holy shitb you revel in your ignorance of German history, don’t you?
For the record, if you want actual sensible gun control in this country the best thing you can do is encourage gun ownership. It took the Black Panther Party to get the Mueller act past.
@gil
I’m suggesting that a populace willing to tolerate Nazi is anti-Semitic even if they don’t want Nazis in power. You didn’t need to be a German Nazi to be utterly opposed to the well being of Jews.
Oh shit. Sorry I just noticed the Shut up from Professor Myers. I’ll move along for a few days. Later.