[The] claims typically came from random social media users — the writers casting aspersions or seeking to affix blame based on their place in the nation’s intensely polarized political landscape.
The conspiracies formed two now familiar camps — one blaming the “deep state” for what happened, the other claiming without evidence that the shooting was not what it seemed.
“Seemed staged,” one social media user wrote.
But even some elected officials joined with false claims. “Joe Biden sent the orders,” Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) wrote on X, the social media platform.
“What’s always interesting to me about moments like this is that digital sleuths, be they everyday people, be they politically motivated online trolls … we’re all looking in the same place for reliable true and correct information,” said Joan Donovan, a professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University and founder of
the Critical Internet Studies Institute. “What’s hard, I think, for the everyday person, is what they’re really looking for is verified information that they can use.”
The hot takes on the internet create a ripe breeding ground for increased division and potential violence, Nisbet said.
“We see each other as enemies, not as fellow Americans,” Nisbet said. “If the other side is immoral, not human, is an existential threat to us and to our country, then it is morally OK to take violent action against them.”
One of the main drivers of political violence is perception — how violent each side thinks the other is, Nisbet said. [Producing a vicious cycle.]
