Trump rally shooting conspiracy theories flourish online
Conspiracy theories, false claims and unsupported assertions exploded online Saturday after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Conspiracy theories, false claims and unsupported assertions exploded online Saturday after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Wild theories about the attack, ranging from speculation about who the shooter was to claims about whether or not incident was planned, quickly accumulated millions of views on social media.
With few details about what actually occurred, conspiracy theorists, political operators and social media opportunists took advantage of the open field, pushing out unverified or unsupported claims onto tech platforms that have largely stepped back from moderating posts about major political breaking news events.
On X, conspiracy theories and false information about the incidents gained traction just minutes after the incident occurred.
As video of the incident ripped across the platform, quickly accumulating millions of views, the word “staged” became the second-highest trending topic immediately after “Trump,” with over 228,000 posts on the platform using the word. In just an hour, numerous posts on X claiming the apparent shooting was staged were viewed several millions of times. There is no evidence to support any claims that the shooting was staged — Trump was visibly injured, and a spectator was killed, while another was injured.
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