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How conspiracy theories swirled after Donald Trump shooting

Incorrect attempts to identify the shooter fed into the various evidence-free narratives.

Before the FBI named the gunman as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by the Secret Service, other people’s reputations were being ruined.

Like football commentator Marco Violi, who posted on Instagram in the middle of the night from Italy to say he’d seen the totally false claims he was a member of Antifa – a loose affiliation of mostly far-left activists – and behind the attack. Those untrue allegations had millions of views on X by the time he attempted to set the record straight on Instagram.

On X, political activists and supporters quickly hunkered down in their own echo chambers, reading posts that were recommended by the site’s algorithm and confirmed what they already thought. The rest of us scrambled to avoid this deep pit of conspiracy and speculation.

This was a test for Elon Musk’s new Twitter – and it’s hard to say the site passed with flying colours.

The other social media sites haven’t been inundated in the same way, perhaps because of their target audience and X’s reputation as a home of political discourse.

X has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

What happened at the Trump Rally? Listen to the latest episode of Americast on BBC Sounds.


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