How bots and far-right figures spread a lie about Beto O'Rourke and the Odessa shooting

[JI7]

I think this belongs in GD more than here but since it's about a primary candidate i'm posting it here.

<A likely bot network, QAnon accounts, a TPUSA advisory council member, the Proud Boys, Sebastian Gorka, and a member of Trump's 2020 advisory board helped push the false claim

Multiple far-right figures helped a likely network of bot accounts spread a false claim on social media connecting former Texas congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke with an alleged mass shooter in Texas.

On August 31, a gunman in Odessa and Midland, TX, killed seven people. While the alleged shooter’s motive is still unknown, a false claim appeared afterward on social media that the alleged shooter had an O’Rourke sticker on his car (authorities said there is no evidence for this) and reportedly spread with the help of likely bot accounts. Other crucial players that spread the falsity included multiple accounts supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory, a member of Turning Point USA’s advisory council, far-right gang the Proud Boys, a former Trump White House adviser and current Sinclair contributor Sebastian Gorka, and current Trump campaign adviser Tony Shaffer.

How the lie spread

On the afternoon of September 1, Twitter account @suemo54 tweeted that the shooter was “a Democrat Socialist who has a Beto sticker on his truck.” As a data analyst noted on Twitter, even though the @suemo54 account had few followers, the tweet containing the false claim received hundreds and eventually thousands of retweets. A misinformation-tracking firm told The Washington Post that “the post appears to have been amplified mainly by bot accounts,” and the account has since been suspended.

Tony Shaffer, a former intelligence officer and member of President Donald Trump’s 2020 advisory board, shared @suemo54’s tweet on the morning of September 2, adding that it showed the alleged shooter “was a @BetoORourke supporter.”


When The Washington Post told Shaffer in a brief interview that the claim in his tweet is false, Shaffer doubled down, saying, “That’s not what I’ve seen from people.”

The baseless claim tying the shooter to a Democratic presidential candidate -- and to the left more broadly -- appears to have jumped from social media to right-wing talk radio; on September 4, host Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed the alleged shooter “was an out-of-control Democrat.”>



https://www.mediamatters.org/maga-trolls/how-bots-and-far-right-figures-spread-lie-about-beto-orourke-and-odessa-shooting

[Gothmog]

1. Beto is being targeted by these bots because Beto has been very effective

I admire the work that Beto has done on the gun control issue

[crazytown]

2. Beto has been targeted hard, even before he announced,

by the likes of Sirota.