Hoaxes And Disinformation Cover Racial Rallies In The United States
JAKARTA - Demonstrations and riots, after the death of black citizen George Floyd, spread in the United States. American timelines are filled with anti-racism protests and support in the name of 'Black Lives Matter'.
But unfortunately, among the support hashtags were hoaxes and disinformation aimed at worsening the rioting situation. Where there is a hashtag #DCBlackout which informs, the situation of the City of Washington, DC collapsed after the riots and looting.
As reported by BBC International, thousands of tweets claim that telecommunications and information systems in parts of the US have been paralyzed. Even the protesters have occupied the White House and Trump Tower.
Well that escalated quickly. YES, that MSNBC clip was from World War Z, I even marked the video above the MSNBC logo "NOT REAL." I dramatically underestimated Twitter, many pointed it out, some claimed it was "real" -that was stupid of me. I apologize #Philly #WorldWarZ pic.twitter.com/8O52I5iEmn
- Bad Scooter (@OfficialSlop) June 1, 2020
Twitter itself has glorified the #DCBlackout hashtag as spam containing disinformation news. It has also curated more than 500,000 tweets from 35,000 fake accounts, using the hashtag.
"These accounts violate our platform manipulation and spam policies, in particular the creation of fake accounts," said a Twitter spokesman, Wednesday, June 3.
Twitter has also closed an account affiliated with the antifa (anti-fascist) group. A left-wing militant group facing white supremacy and neo-Nazis with rallies in the United States. President Donald Trump also called the antifa group a new terrorist organization.
Hoax Chaos in America
The riot situation was further aggravated by hoax news. The engineering pictures show another situation of rallies and looting in the United States.
Some of them even include an aerial view of the city of Philadelphia, which is surrounded by smoke and fire. These Twitter accounts faked stories that the rioting was getting worse.
*** MSNBC NEVER USED THE WORLD WAR Z CLIP !! PERIOD! AUDIO TAKEN FROM THIS REAL LAST NIGHT (BELOW), WITH GRAPHICS ON TOP OF A TRAILER RIPPED FROM YOU TUBE.AGAIN, MSNBC NEVER NEVER AIRED THE WWZ FOOTAGE !! *** #WorldWarZ #PHILLY #MSNBC #FAKEVIDEO #ACNOCONSPIR #BADJUDGEMENT pic.twitter.com/Y9osxvyTFI
- Bad Scooter (@OfficialSlop) June 1, 2020
The Bad Scooter Twitter account revealed that hoax images were circulating that took footage of the World War Z film. The cut of the image was deliberately engineered to insert an MSNBC news label to ensure that the footage was genuine news.
In the next tweet, Bad Scooter showed the original upload of an MSNBC broadcast. So that the viral image related to America's increasingly chaotic condition is hoax news.