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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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.

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“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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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