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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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#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.

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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.

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