The Right-Wing Ran Absolutely Wild on the US-Canada Border Car Crash [View all]
Last edited Thu Sep 12, 2024, 07:45 AM - Edit history (1)
On Wednesday, a well-to-do middle-aged couple died when their speeding Bentley crashed and exploded in a speculator fireball at a United States-Canada border crossing. But as is so often the case, this tragedy quickly dovetailed in real-time with right-wing misinformation about terror attacks and anti-immigrant bigotry.
It’s a playbook that’s unfortunately become extremely commonplace in the window that’s experienced following a major event.
As journalists and researchers waited for more information to become available, fringe-right users jumped at the chance to use the event to push agendas. X, Elon Musk’s platform formerly known as Twitter, used to have several guardrails including verification and strict moderation and was actually seen as useful in times of breaking news. Today it’s become practically unusable for verification and is a key vector for pushing misinformation.
Laura Loomer, a far-right personality, quickly declared the attack terrorism and went to work spreading the idea as far as she could. In long posts proliferated with all-caps, she called it “a terrorist attack today at the US-Canada border” and demanded the government do something about it. Robert Spencer, an anti-Muslim activist, pushed the notion that an Iranian passport was found at the scene ( the driver was from New York state.) Spencer did eventually correct the record, Loomer, however, did not.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkavmm/us-border-car-crash-ring-wing-misinformaiton
And presidential candidates joined in the fray too. Crazy.
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