NonilexJun 10, 2025

#Disinformation Campaign of #Fake Images & #ConspiracyTheories On #SocialMedia Stoke #RightWing #Rage Around #LAProtests

Misleading photos, videos & texts have spread widely on social #media as #protests against #immigration #raids unfolded in #LosAngeles, rehashing old conspiracy theories‘ to support #Trump’s actions.

The flood of falsehoods appears intended to stoke outrage toward #immigrants & #Democrats.

#MediaLiteracy #moderation #TrumpLies #propaganda #Resist
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/technology/la-protests-conspiracy-theories-disinformation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Amid LA Protests, Conspiracy Theories and Fake Images Spread Online

Disinformation spreading on social media platforms has stoked an already tense situation.

The New York Times
Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

The #disinformation also added to the confusion over what exactly was happening on the streets, which was portrayed in digital & #SocialMedia [& #RightWing *news* #media] through starkly divergent #ideological lenses. Many posts created the false impression that the entire city was engulfed in violence, when the few clashes were limited to only very small parts.

#MediaLiteracy #moderation #TrumpLies #Trump #propaganda #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

There were numerous scenes of protesters throwing rocks or other objects at law enforcement officers & setting cars ablaze, including a number of self-driving #Waymo taxis. At the same time, false images spread to revive old #ConspiracyTheories that the #protests were a planned provocation, not a spontaneous response to the #immigration raids.

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #TrumpLies #Trump #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

The confrontation escalated on Monday as new #protests occurred & #Defense Secy #PeteHegseth announced—on X—that he was mobilizing 700 #Marines from a base near #LosAngeles to guard federal bldgs. They are expected to join 2k members of the #California #NationalGuard whom #Trump ordered deployed without the authorization of the #state’s #governor, #GavinNewsom, who normally [legally] has command of the #troops.

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #propaganda #disinformation #LAprotests

Show threadNonilex

The latest deployments prompted a new wave of misleading images to spread—some purporting to show #Marines & the #military service’s weapons in action. One was a still from “Blue Thunder,” a 1983 action-thriller about a conspiracy to deprive residents of #LosAngeles of their civil rights. It features a climatic dogfight over the city’s downtown.

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #Trump #TrumpLies #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #disinformation #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Jun 10, 2025 at 2:14pmWeb
Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

Darren L. Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University’s #Media Forensics Hub, said *#conservatives* online were “building up the riots in a performative way” to help bolster #Trump’s claims that #LosAngeles had been taken over by “violent, insurrectionist mobs.”

Linvill said the posts were also “a bit self-fulfilling.” “As they direct attention to it,” he said, “more #protesters will show up.”

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #TrumpLies #propaganda #disinformation #immigration #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

#JamesWoods, the actor who has become known for spreading #ConspiracyTheories, used his account on X to rail against the #state’s elected ofcls, especially #Governor #Newsom, a Democrat. He also reposted a fabricated quote, attributed to President Barack #Obama, discussing a secret plot to impose socialism on the country, as well as a video of burning police cars that was from 2020.

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #Trump #TrumpLies #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

An innocuous photograph of a pallet of #bricks, actually posted on the website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia, was cited as proof that the protests were organized by nonprofit organizations supported by #GeorgeSoros, the financier who, to the feverishly conspiratorial #RightWing, has become a mastermind of global disorder.

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #Trump #TrumpLies #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

X posted a *Community Note* pointing out that the photo had nothing to do w/the #protests, but it still was seen >800k times. It was also widely reposted, including by several seemingly inauthentic accounts in Chinese.

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #Trump #TrumpLies #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

“These days, it feels like every time there’s a protest, the old clickbaity ‘pallets of bricks’ hoax shows up right on cue,” #SocialMedia Lab, a research center at the Toronto Metropolitan University, wrote on Bluesky. “You know the one, photos or videos of #bricks supposedly left out to encourage rioting. It’s catnip for #RightWing agitators & grifters.”

#MediaLiteracy #moderation #Trump #TrumpLies #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

It also fits into the narrative that #protests against government policies are somehow inauthentic. On his own platform, Truth Social, #Trump also suggested that the protesters were “Paid Insurrectionists!”

Numerous posts echoed unsubstantiated claims that the protests were the work of #GeorgeSoros as well as local #NGOs or #Democratic elected officials, including the #mayor of #LosAngeles, #KarenBass.

#SocialMedia #moderation #TrumpLies #propaganda #disinformation #LAprotests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

Some posts disparaging the #protests were shared by accounts w/deceptive handles that closely resembled those of ofcl govt sources or news orgs.

#MikeBenz, a #conspiracy-minded #influencer on X who last year claimed that the #Pentagon used the pop star #TaylorSwift as part of a psyop to undercut #Trump, advanced an outlandish theory that the mayor had links to the #CIA & had helped start riots in the city where she lives.

#SocialMedia #moderation #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #disinformation

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

He based that simply on Mayor Bass’s role as a board member for the National Endowment for Democracy, the congressionally mandated org formed during the Reagan admin to promote #democratic governance around the world.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the theme was echoed by accounts across #SocialMedia linked to #Russia, which often amplifies content that discredits the #UnitedStates.

#MediaLiteracy #moderation #Trump #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

#Russia & its supporters have long accused #GeorgeSoros or the US govt of covertly sponsoring “color revolutions” to overthrow govts—from the Arab Spring countries swept up by mass street #protests in 2011 to #Ukraine.

“It is nationwide conspiracy of liberals against not only #Trump but against American people in general,” #AleksandrDugin, a prominent nationalist in Russia, posted.

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #TrumpLies #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

#Disinformation in situations like these spreads so quickly & widely that efforts to verify #facts cannot keep up, said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel at Free Press, an advocacy organization that studies the intersection of #media, #technology & the #law. She described it as part of “a much longer effort to delegitimize #peaceful #resistance movements.”

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #Trump #TrumpLies #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Show threadNonilexJun 10, 2025

“#InformationWarfare is always a symptom of conflict, stoked often by those in #power to fuel their own #illiberal goals,” she said. “It confuses audiences, scares people who might otherwise have empathy for the cause & divides us when we need #solidarity most.”

#MediaLiteracy #SocialMedia #moderation #Trump #TrumpLies #ConspiracyTheories #propaganda #disinformation #LosAngeles #LAprotests #immigration #protests

Show threadRichard Michael BlaberJun 10, 2025
@Nonilex Why George Soros? The fact that he's Jewish, as well as very wealthy & liberal, has nothing to do with it, I suppose?
Show threadCats Who Code (cursed)Jun 10, 2025
@Nonilex "Well, all I know is what I read in the papers." - Will Rogers. Still relevant, it seems!
Show threadCrowjaneJun 10, 2025

@Nonilex

The same shit was pulled in 2020 after George Floyd was killed. Photos of bricks on pallets at construction sites were spread around social media as proof that the protestors had planned it all and were going to pummel police with bricks.

Show threadJenkins. Tom Jenkins. 🤮🤢🤮Jun 10, 2025
@Nonilex immer die selbe Scheiße. Excuse my French.
Show threadDavid Mitchell Jun 11, 2025

@Nonilex

“It’s civil war!”

… to be fought with … bricks.

… really.