{"id":25626,"date":"2020-06-03T15:30:11","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T22:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=25626"},"modified":"2020-06-03T15:30:11","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T22:30:11","slug":"conspiracy-theories-run-rampant-online-amid-floyd-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=25626","title":{"rendered":"Conspiracy theories run rampant online amid Floyd protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Misinformation about the killing of\u00a0George Floyd<\/a>\u00a0and subsequent protests is spreading rapidly online, adding to the chaos as nationwide demonstrations enter their second week.<\/p>\n

The conspiracy theories range from claims that Floyd\u2019s arrest was staged to others saying he is still alive, despite video evidence that the 46-year-old unarmed black man died in police custody in Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck for about eight minutes.<\/p>\n

Other unfounded claims say Floyd\u2019s death was part of an international conspiracy to destabilize the U.S., while some allege that former officer Derek Chauvin, who\u00a0has been charged with second-degree murder in the slaying, is an actor.<\/p>\n

Twitter has been fertile ground for many of the unfounded claims. A search for the phrase \u201cGeorge Floyd is not dead\u201d brings up dozens of results on the platform.<\/p>\n

One account<\/a>\u00a0tweeted over the weekend that \u201cGeorge Floyd\u2019s execution is part of a Russian military intelligence operation.\u201d The post has more than 4,400 likes and 1,800 retweets without comment.<\/p>\n

Another tweet<\/a>, which claimed that Chauvin was pictured wearing a \u201cMake Whites Great Again\u201d hat, was retweeted more than 19,000 times despite Twitter warning that the image contained manipulated media.<\/p>\n

But much of the misinformation has focused on the subsequent protests and who is organizing them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever there is confusion or something people don\u2019t know, there is an opportunity for misinformation to come in,\u201d said Diara Townes, an investigative researcher at First Draft, an organization dedicated to fighting online misinformation. \u201cA lack of reliable information creates a vacuum for bad actors to exploit with mis- and disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

One entity that has been painted as orchestrating the protests \u2014 or at least the more violent parts of them \u2014 is antifa, a term referring to radical activists who say they use direct action to fight against fascism.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the theory have pointed to social media accounts purporting to speak for antifa and encouraging violence, but those allegations have not been substantiated.<\/p>\n

Twitter took down an account with the handle @antifa_us this week that was tied to white nationalist group Identity Evropa after it posted a tweet inciting violence.<\/p>\n

For years \u201cright wing provocateurs have been impersonating antifa, using inflaming rhetoric and doing their best to create a boogeyman on the left,\u201d said Joan Donovan, research director at the Harvard Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.<\/p>\n

Baseless theories about antifa have also circulated widely on messaging platforms such as Telegram and neighborhood sites like Nextdoor, according to Townes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Misinformation about the killing of\u00a0George Floyd\u00a0and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25627,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25626\/revisions\/25627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}