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It is now as predictable as calls for attention and prayer: gun attacks leave many dead and massacres are also accompanied by some of the most shocking theories of conspiracy and misinformation.
This happened after the incidents in Sandy Hook, after Parkland, after the gun attack on the nightclub in Orlando and the bloody event earlier this month in a grocery store in Buffalo. Within hours of the shooting at a school Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas, another “attack” was launched on the Internet when baseless allegations were made about the gunman and his possible motives.
Unfounded allegations that the gunman was an immigrant living illegally in the US, or transgender, quickly spread on Twitter, Reddit and other social media platforms. They were accompanied by well-known conspiracy theories that suggested the gun attack was in some way staged.
According to disinformation expert Jaime Longoria, the allegations reflect broader problems with racism and intolerance towards transgender people and are an attempt to blame minority groups already facing higher levels of cyberbullying and hate crimes.
“It’s a tactic that serves two purposes: to avoid real talk of gun violence and to give people who do not want to face reality an objective to blame,” said Ms Longoria, director of research at the Disinfo Defense League. , a non-profit organization working to combat racism-based misinformation.
In the hours following the gun attack, posts with false allegations that the gunman was living illegally in the country went viral. Some social media users added “embellishments”, writing that the person was “on the run and was being pursued by the Border Patrol”.
“He was an illegal immigrant wanted for murder by El Salvador,” read a Twitter post that received hundreds of likes and was reposted on Twitter as many times. “This is blood in Biden’s hands and it should never have happened,” it was further written.
At a news conference Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the man who carried out the attack was 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a U.S. citizen.
Other social media users posted images of innocent internet users falsely identifying themselves as perpetrators of the gun attack, claiming they were transgender. On the 4Chan website, users shared photos and discussed a plan to label the gunman as transgender, with no evidence to support these claims.
A Twitter post, which has already turned out to be deleted, shows a picture of a transgender woman holding a green bottle in her mouth and looking at the camera with a headset hanging from one ear.
None of this is true. The photo was actually of a 22-year-old transgender woman named Sabrina, who lives in New York City. Sabrina, who requested that her last name not be published due to privacy concerns, confirmed to the Associated Press that the photo was hers, but added that it was not linked to the alleged YouTube account.
Sabrina said she had received harassing comments on social media, especially messages claiming she had been the one shot. She had responded to a series of messages asking for the posts to be deleted.
“This whole ordeal is just something terrible,” Sabrina told the AP.
Another photo that circulated widely on social media showed a transgender woman in a sweatshirt writing Coca-Cola and a black skirt. A second photo showed the same woman wearing a black NASA shirt with a red bottom. None of the photos showed the gunman, they belonged to a Reddit platform user named Sam, who confirmed her identity to the AP on Wednesday. The agency did not use Sami’s last name to protect its privacy.
“It’s not me. “I do not even live in Texas,” she wrote in a Reddit post.
Authorities have not released data on the perpetrator’s sexuality or gender identity.
Arizona lawmaker Paul Gosar referred to both baseless allegations about the perpetrator of the attack in a Twitter post, which he later deleted.
“There is a foreign and illegal transsexual named Salvatore Ramos,” Mr Gosar wrote on Twitter on Tuesday evening.
The legislature’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
In some cases, misinformation about gun attacks or other events is spread on social media in order to help. But there are also cases when some people try to raise funds for fake causes or draw attention to their sites or organizations. There are others who distribute them just for fun.
According to Ben Deckeer, founder and CEO of digital investigation firm Memetika, extremist groups, including those on the 4chan platform, use gun attacks and other tragedies to incite chaos, control the public and push theses. harmful.
“They post in order to support these incidents and to influence the central debates,” said Mr Deckeer.
“There is a nihilistic desire to test oneself in communities like these to successfully control the public. “So if you manage to lead a campaign that leads to a result like this, you gain more credibility within the group.”
However, for communities suffering the consequences of such harsh cyber-attacks, unfounded blame raises concerns about further discrimination and violence.
A transphobic comment on social media, which may seem harmless, could spark an act of violence against a transgender person, says Jaden Janak, a representative of the Center for Transgender Studies at the University of Texas.
“These children and teachers who were killed were living their lives. They did not know that yesterday was their last day. On the other hand, as members of the transgender community, this is a permanent fear for us “, says Mr. Janak.
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