As with attacks from Sandy Hook to Buffalo, false claims emerge – about the gunman, his motives and the shooting itself
By now it’s as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers: as America reels from another mass shooting, wild conspiracy theories and misinformation about the carnage swirl online.
It happened after the 2012 school shooting in Sandy Hook, the 2018 shooting in Parkland, the violence at an Orlando nightclub and after the deadly rampage at a Buffalo grocery store this month.
Within hours of Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, another rash began as internet users spread baseless claims about the man named as the gunman and his possible motives on Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms. The false claims were accompanied by familiar conspiracy theories suggesting the entire shooting was somehow staged.
The claims reflect broader problems with racism and intolerance toward transgender people, and are an effort to blame the shooting on minority groups who already endure higher rates of online harassment and hate crimes, according to the disinformation expert Jaime Longoria.
“It’s a tactic that serves two purposes: it avoids real conversations about the issue [of gun violence], and it gives people who don’t want to face reality a patsy, it gives them someone to blame,” said Longoria, director of research at the Disinfo Defense League, a non-profit that works to fight racist misinformation.
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