Conspiracy Theorists (and Elon Musk) Falsely Accuse Student of Being 'Fed' Posing as Neo-Nazi

[Nevilledog]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93k34e/conspiracy-theorists-and-elon-musk-falsely-accuse-student-of-being-fed-posing-as-neo-nazi

It was halfway through the Dodgers game he was attending with his mother when Ben Brody realized some of the worst people on the internet believed he was a federal agent pretending to be a neo-Nazi 800 miles away.

Earlier in the day Brody, a 22-year-old recent political science grad from UC Riverside, had noticed people commenting on his Instagram account and calling him “a fed,” but he thought it was just trivial and would blow over. But while at the June 25 game, which saw the Houston Astros beat the Dodgers, his phone kept going off until he and his mother realized something horrible was underway. Before they left the game their home address would be leaked online. By the time they got home, they decided they couldn't stay there that night.

"In the car, I was freaking out and very nervous, very anxious, like 'oh my God, I can't believe this happened. You know, my life is over," said Brody. "Everything that I tried to work for and all this is just completely gone. And I genuinely felt very anxious, very nervous."

"I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. I couldn't sleep. I was like, walking around and just, like, pacing because I was just so nervous about everything."

One day earlier, over 850 miles away from where Brody lives, two far-right groups got into a scrum at an Oregon City pride festival. During the hubbub two neo-Nazis with the Rose City Nationalists had their masks pulled off and their faces exposed. The men’s faces were caught on video and internet sleuths quickly went to work. At some point, someone found a photo of Brody that looked similar to the man in the video and posted it as fact. VICE News attempted to find where it originated but was unable. At about 8 AM PST on June 25 that Brody's name began to be shared across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook amongst some MAGA and pro-Proud Boy circles.

*snip*

[Initech]

1. This kind of shit is getting really out of hand.

[highplainsdem]

2. Brody should sue hell out of Elon Musk and others who spread this insanity.

[sakabatou]

3. Agreed

Defamation at the very least.

[enki23]

4. So... they're pals with actual neo nazis, but they're mad when then think they found a pretend one?

.

[anarch]

6. of course they are--any Fed posing as a Nazi would presumably be infiltrating their organization

as part of an attempt to take them down and/or hold them to account for whatever hate crimes they've committed and so on--they don't like that

[ret5hd]

8. OR a fed is also a nazi.

Decent chance of that also.

[marble falls]

5. I'd encourage that, I heard there are scads of Feds suited up as Proud Boys, Boogey Bois, Nazis, ...

... absolute scads of them!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. I heard it's a minimum of 1 in 3.

[marble falls]

9. At least and that's just their leadship!