Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Odd..did they not have an armed cop in their school? How did that work out for them? Did he save any lives?I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
The other side is losing their shit.
It is almost not worth engaging with them anymore, they've gone so far into lala land. They are doing their damnedest to bully these kids into submission; it's embarrassing.
I'm embarrassed that any of us are still bothering to engage these mouth breathers.
It's honestly not very funny anymore.
You just aren't able to counter most of our points without regressing to emotional appeals and accusations of "ist/ic/ism"
And again, my IQ vs. yours any day of the week "Dr"
only pathetic tool bags make statements like *my IQ vs. yours any day of the week*
you've already lost, snap-on
Of course it's a gun grab. It's not a ploy, it's a demand. I suggest you listen for once so you know what they are asking for and why.I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
Most states already have the ability to have armed security don't they? That's a moot point.
Odd..did they not have an armed cop in their school? How did that work out for them? Did he save any lives?I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
I think a bit more needs to be done, don't you? Armed guards....increased security...soon our schools will be indistinguishable from our jails.
Well, i dont munch on tide pods.OK delYes one side bashes them unnecessarilyThe other side is losing their shit.How the Parkland teens became villains on the right-wing Internet
Shame on all who have engaged in this:
Less than a week after 17 people died in Parkland, Fla., right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza began taunting some of the teenage survivors of the massacre. “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” he tweeted on Feb. 20, commenting on a photo showing Parkland survivors crying as state legislators voted down a bill to ban military-style weapons.
D’Souza wrote another tweet, “Adults, 1, kids 0.” Combined, the two tweets have more than 25,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
[ A fake photo of Emma González went viral on the far right, where Parkland teens are villains ]
Now, five weeks after the Parkland school shooting, D’Souza’s tweets seem almost quaint. As Emma González, David Hogg and the other Parkland teens fighting for gun control have become viral liberal heroes, the teens are villains on the right-wing Internet and fair game for the mockery and attacks that this group usually reserves for its adult enemies.
That infamy reached a wider audience this past weekend around the time of their March for Our Lives protest, when a doctored image that showed González ripping up a copy of the U.S. Constitution (she actually ripped up a gun target) went mildly viral on the Trump-supporting parts of the Internet, defended as “satire” by those who shared it.
"Here’s a look back at how the Parkland student activists became such a target:
Day 1: Conspiracy theorists
The first to target the Parkland students were the conspiracy theorists. When a mass shooting like Parkland happens, conspiracy theorists begin to search for signs of a false flag — proof that the shooting was actually staged and/or carried out for political reasons — pretty much right away. They’re following what online trolling expert Whitney Phillips calls a “tragedy script”: The establishment is trying to take away your guns, they’ll use mass shootings to do that, and here are the tricks they use to manipulate the public. Anything irregular becomes conspiracy fodder.
[ We studied thousands of anonymous posts about the Parkland attack — and found a conspiracy in the making ]
An anonymous 8chan user told the fringe chat board to look for “crisis actors” just 47 minutes after the shooting happened. And if closed chat rooms and fringey boards such as 8chan, 4chan and some subreddits on Reddit are where conspiracy theorists coordinate, then Twitter is where those conspiracy theories — and the harassment that comes with them — are performed for the public. Within hours, anonymous Twitter users were in the mentions of students tweeting from their classrooms during the shooting, accusing them of being part of the conspiracy:
One Twitter thread, made just after midnight on the night of the attack, claimed to contain “Bombshell” information about Parkland. @Magapill (an account once approvingly retweeted by President Trump) shared a video interview with a student that has become the basis of a debunked Parkland conspiracy theory. The thread was retweeted more than 3,000 times.
All this happened before the Parkland students calling for gun control began their ascent to viral iconography. When they emerged, the campaign to discredit and debunk the Parkland students expanded.
Week 2: #MAGA Internet
“EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines,” read a headline on Gateway Pundit. The article was one of a handful on far-right publications to emerge after the first weekend following the shooting.
Week 2: #MAGA Internet
“EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines,” read a headline on Gateway Pundit. The article was one of a handful on far-right publications to emerge after the first weekend following the shooting.
[ Algorithms are one reason a conspiracy theory goes viral. Another reason might be you. ]
Hogg, along with González, had found their voices. In one CNN interview, the pair called for the National Rifle Association to “disband.” That interview was on the Monday after the attack. By Tuesday, an aide to Florida state Rep. Shawn Harrison (R-Tampa) was fired for telling a reporter that Hogg and González were “not students … but actors.” As evidence, the aide sent the reporter one of several YouTube videos promoting that conspiracy theory.
Even a former U.S. congressman, Jack Kingston, joined in on Twitter: “O really? ‘Students’ are planning a nationwide rally? Not left-wing gun control activists using 17yr kids in the wake of a horrible tragedy? #Soros #Resistance #Antifa #DNC”
The conspiracy spread quickly, and the algorithms noticed. Soon, a video claiming that Hogg was an actor was the No. 1 trending video on YouTube.
Week 3: Fights with social media companies
In early March, the conspiracy Internet — and some of its Trump supporters — turned the conspiracy theories surrounding the Parkland students into a crusade against what they saw as censorship on major Silicon Valley platforms.
After a conspiracy video trended on YouTube, the platform cracked down on videos and creators who were promoting the false belief that the Parkland students were hired actors or reading from scripts to promote gun control. Enter Alex Jones.
[ How Alex Jones turned the Parkland shooting into a week-long news cycle about himself ]
Jones’s main YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers, and he made several videos about Hogg, such as “David Hogg Can’t Remember His Lines In TV Interview,” in the weeks after the shooting.
After CNN reported that the channel was 2 strikes away from a YouTube ban for violating the platform’s community guidelines, Jones started talking about censorship. He claimed his channel was about to be deleted (it wasn’t); he fundraised to support a fight against his enemies. This blitz became a week-long news cycle that captured the attention of Infowars’ supporters and opponents alike.
March for Our Lives: The memes go mainstream
On the eve of the March for Our Lives, the NRA delivered a message to the Parkland students who organized it: “No one would know your names” if a gunman hadn’t killed 17 people at their school, said a host on NRATV.
The Parkland teens, as they took on such a polarizing issue, were always going to have opponents — including from more conservative Parkland students who also survived the massacre. But the deeply personal, conspiracy-minded attacks targeting Hogg, González and their fellow classmate activists have gone from the conspiracy fringes to a larger audience.
And after the viral image of González ripping up the Constitution, Rep. Steve King’s campaign Facebook page (R-Iowa) shared a mocking meme about her. The post refers to a patch of the Cuban flag on her jacket worn during the march:
“This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense.”
A day after the hoax targeting González went viral, the conservative blog Redstate published — and then updated — an article that falsely implied Hogg might not have been at school during the shooting at all.
“Something doesn’t add up” about Hogg’s whereabouts during the shooting, the original article claimed, focusing on a clip from an upcoming documentary where the student describes going home, grabbing his camera, and returning to interview students.
“It is not possible for him to have been in class and also have been at home, a three-mile bike ride away from campus,” the article concluded. “One of those stories is a lie. Hogg should explain himself, and quickly.”
But the entire premise of the Redstate article was inaccurate. After publication, Redstate published two “updates” at the top of the story, clarifying that the statements they cited as inconsistent were actually describing two separate events, several hours apart. Hogg was definitely on campus at the time of the shooting, and eventually went home and returned to school that evening to interview his gathered classmates just off campus.
It is almost not worth engaging with them anymore, they've gone so far into lala land. They are doing their damnedest to bully these kids into submission; it's embarrassing.
The other side looks at them like they are messiahs.
Normal people dont think twice about it.
intelligent normal people do
Have fun circle jerking with a bunch of kids LOL
i suspected for awhile that you might be an intelligent life form
i was wrong
Odd..did they not have an armed cop in their school? How did that work out for them? Did he save any lives?I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
I think a bit more needs to be done, don't you? Armed guards....increased security...soon our schools will be indistinguishable from our jails.
There are extreme views in every crowd. Despite what some people here are accusing the kids of, they are obviously NOT reading from the same page of the hymnal, since I heard one kid asking for a confiscation of all guns and another asking for the confiscation of NO weapons. All on the same stage.Anyone that claims the NRA is a terrorist organization is literally losing their shit.The other side is losing their shit.How the Parkland teens became villains on the right-wing Internet
Shame on all who have engaged in this:
Less than a week after 17 people died in Parkland, Fla., right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza began taunting some of the teenage survivors of the massacre. “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” he tweeted on Feb. 20, commenting on a photo showing Parkland survivors crying as state legislators voted down a bill to ban military-style weapons.
D’Souza wrote another tweet, “Adults, 1, kids 0.” Combined, the two tweets have more than 25,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
[ A fake photo of Emma González went viral on the far right, where Parkland teens are villains ]
Now, five weeks after the Parkland school shooting, D’Souza’s tweets seem almost quaint. As Emma González, David Hogg and the other Parkland teens fighting for gun control have become viral liberal heroes, the teens are villains on the right-wing Internet and fair game for the mockery and attacks that this group usually reserves for its adult enemies.
That infamy reached a wider audience this past weekend around the time of their March for Our Lives protest, when a doctored image that showed González ripping up a copy of the U.S. Constitution (she actually ripped up a gun target) went mildly viral on the Trump-supporting parts of the Internet, defended as “satire” by those who shared it.
"Here’s a look back at how the Parkland student activists became such a target:
Day 1: Conspiracy theorists
The first to target the Parkland students were the conspiracy theorists. When a mass shooting like Parkland happens, conspiracy theorists begin to search for signs of a false flag — proof that the shooting was actually staged and/or carried out for political reasons — pretty much right away. They’re following what online trolling expert Whitney Phillips calls a “tragedy script”: The establishment is trying to take away your guns, they’ll use mass shootings to do that, and here are the tricks they use to manipulate the public. Anything irregular becomes conspiracy fodder.
[ We studied thousands of anonymous posts about the Parkland attack — and found a conspiracy in the making ]
An anonymous 8chan user told the fringe chat board to look for “crisis actors” just 47 minutes after the shooting happened. And if closed chat rooms and fringey boards such as 8chan, 4chan and some subreddits on Reddit are where conspiracy theorists coordinate, then Twitter is where those conspiracy theories — and the harassment that comes with them — are performed for the public. Within hours, anonymous Twitter users were in the mentions of students tweeting from their classrooms during the shooting, accusing them of being part of the conspiracy:
One Twitter thread, made just after midnight on the night of the attack, claimed to contain “Bombshell” information about Parkland. @Magapill (an account once approvingly retweeted by President Trump) shared a video interview with a student that has become the basis of a debunked Parkland conspiracy theory. The thread was retweeted more than 3,000 times.
All this happened before the Parkland students calling for gun control began their ascent to viral iconography. When they emerged, the campaign to discredit and debunk the Parkland students expanded.
Week 2: #MAGA Internet
“EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines,” read a headline on Gateway Pundit. The article was one of a handful on far-right publications to emerge after the first weekend following the shooting.
Week 2: #MAGA Internet
“EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines,” read a headline on Gateway Pundit. The article was one of a handful on far-right publications to emerge after the first weekend following the shooting.
[ Algorithms are one reason a conspiracy theory goes viral. Another reason might be you. ]
Hogg, along with González, had found their voices. In one CNN interview, the pair called for the National Rifle Association to “disband.” That interview was on the Monday after the attack. By Tuesday, an aide to Florida state Rep. Shawn Harrison (R-Tampa) was fired for telling a reporter that Hogg and González were “not students … but actors.” As evidence, the aide sent the reporter one of several YouTube videos promoting that conspiracy theory.
Even a former U.S. congressman, Jack Kingston, joined in on Twitter: “O really? ‘Students’ are planning a nationwide rally? Not left-wing gun control activists using 17yr kids in the wake of a horrible tragedy? #Soros #Resistance #Antifa #DNC”
The conspiracy spread quickly, and the algorithms noticed. Soon, a video claiming that Hogg was an actor was the No. 1 trending video on YouTube.
Week 3: Fights with social media companies
In early March, the conspiracy Internet — and some of its Trump supporters — turned the conspiracy theories surrounding the Parkland students into a crusade against what they saw as censorship on major Silicon Valley platforms.
After a conspiracy video trended on YouTube, the platform cracked down on videos and creators who were promoting the false belief that the Parkland students were hired actors or reading from scripts to promote gun control. Enter Alex Jones.
[ How Alex Jones turned the Parkland shooting into a week-long news cycle about himself ]
Jones’s main YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers, and he made several videos about Hogg, such as “David Hogg Can’t Remember His Lines In TV Interview,” in the weeks after the shooting.
After CNN reported that the channel was 2 strikes away from a YouTube ban for violating the platform’s community guidelines, Jones started talking about censorship. He claimed his channel was about to be deleted (it wasn’t); he fundraised to support a fight against his enemies. This blitz became a week-long news cycle that captured the attention of Infowars’ supporters and opponents alike.
March for Our Lives: The memes go mainstream
On the eve of the March for Our Lives, the NRA delivered a message to the Parkland students who organized it: “No one would know your names” if a gunman hadn’t killed 17 people at their school, said a host on NRATV.
The Parkland teens, as they took on such a polarizing issue, were always going to have opponents — including from more conservative Parkland students who also survived the massacre. But the deeply personal, conspiracy-minded attacks targeting Hogg, González and their fellow classmate activists have gone from the conspiracy fringes to a larger audience.
And after the viral image of González ripping up the Constitution, Rep. Steve King’s campaign Facebook page (R-Iowa) shared a mocking meme about her. The post refers to a patch of the Cuban flag on her jacket worn during the march:
“This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense.”
A day after the hoax targeting González went viral, the conservative blog Redstate published — and then updated — an article that falsely implied Hogg might not have been at school during the shooting at all.
“Something doesn’t add up” about Hogg’s whereabouts during the shooting, the original article claimed, focusing on a clip from an upcoming documentary where the student describes going home, grabbing his camera, and returning to interview students.
“It is not possible for him to have been in class and also have been at home, a three-mile bike ride away from campus,” the article concluded. “One of those stories is a lie. Hogg should explain himself, and quickly.”
But the entire premise of the Redstate article was inaccurate. After publication, Redstate published two “updates” at the top of the story, clarifying that the statements they cited as inconsistent were actually describing two separate events, several hours apart. Hogg was definitely on campus at the time of the shooting, and eventually went home and returned to school that evening to interview his gathered classmates just off campus.
It is almost not worth engaging with them anymore, they've gone so far into lala land. They are doing their damnedest to bully these kids into submission; it's embarrassing.
These kids are showing us textbook examples of losing their shit.
One of them puked on stage for Christ sakes.
You're an idiot. I posted this to incite conversation and to call some of the people here on their dishonest bullshit. Politically, I'm against most of what the Parkland kids want..except I do think a conversation is in order. You hacks can't believe that one can be against The NRA..and still be in favor of the 2nd.Or..perhaps..someone posted something of interests and a complete partisan hack once again attacked the posters..and had nothing to say at all about the content...showing the world what an ass he is. I'm not a leftist...I just hate the Alt/right..and the mindless conspiracy tinfoil hats people who would lie about children trying to make a difference.Let's see if I;'ve got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
BTW..the post is from the WaPo....I posted most of the article because poofters like you never read the links..and respond in odd and off topic fashions--I see I was unsuccessful in my attempt.
You are a mindless child who uses other people's words because you cannot come up with anything original and who reduces politics to nothing more than a game of cowboys and Indians.
You, like the rest of the hive mind leftists, are more interested in attacking anything that is labelled to you as "right" than actually formulating any ideas as to how to deal with school violence effectively. I never see any of you mindless conformists addressing the issue of mainstreaming psychotics in our public schools, the failures of our justice system to respond to increasingly bizarre behavior, the role the media plays in this or anything else. All you are capable of is repeating the selected talking points that reduces a very complex social phenomenon down to a single variable. You are simply too stupid to understand anything more complex.
Again, your signature moves...attack the poster...forget the actual points---this is about how the alt/right has treated these kids..with smears and lies. You should be hiding your heads in shame..yet you persist.
Odd..did they not have an armed cop in their school? How did that work out for them? Did he save any lives?I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
I think a bit more needs to be done, don't you? Armed guards....increased security...soon our schools will be indistinguishable from our jails.
There are extreme views in every crowd. Despite what some people here are accusing the kids of, they are obviously NOT reading from the same page of the hymnal, since I heard one kid asking for a confiscation of all guns and another asking for the confiscation of NO weapons. All on the same stage.Anyone that claims the NRA is a terrorist organization is literally losing their shit.The other side is losing their shit.How the Parkland teens became villains on the right-wing Internet
Shame on all who have engaged in this:
Less than a week after 17 people died in Parkland, Fla., right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza began taunting some of the teenage survivors of the massacre. “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” he tweeted on Feb. 20, commenting on a photo showing Parkland survivors crying as state legislators voted down a bill to ban military-style weapons.
D’Souza wrote another tweet, “Adults, 1, kids 0.” Combined, the two tweets have more than 25,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
[ A fake photo of Emma González went viral on the far right, where Parkland teens are villains ]
Now, five weeks after the Parkland school shooting, D’Souza’s tweets seem almost quaint. As Emma González, David Hogg and the other Parkland teens fighting for gun control have become viral liberal heroes, the teens are villains on the right-wing Internet and fair game for the mockery and attacks that this group usually reserves for its adult enemies.
That infamy reached a wider audience this past weekend around the time of their March for Our Lives protest, when a doctored image that showed González ripping up a copy of the U.S. Constitution (she actually ripped up a gun target) went mildly viral on the Trump-supporting parts of the Internet, defended as “satire” by those who shared it.
"Here’s a look back at how the Parkland student activists became such a target:
Day 1: Conspiracy theorists
The first to target the Parkland students were the conspiracy theorists. When a mass shooting like Parkland happens, conspiracy theorists begin to search for signs of a false flag — proof that the shooting was actually staged and/or carried out for political reasons — pretty much right away. They’re following what online trolling expert Whitney Phillips calls a “tragedy script”: The establishment is trying to take away your guns, they’ll use mass shootings to do that, and here are the tricks they use to manipulate the public. Anything irregular becomes conspiracy fodder.
[ We studied thousands of anonymous posts about the Parkland attack — and found a conspiracy in the making ]
An anonymous 8chan user told the fringe chat board to look for “crisis actors” just 47 minutes after the shooting happened. And if closed chat rooms and fringey boards such as 8chan, 4chan and some subreddits on Reddit are where conspiracy theorists coordinate, then Twitter is where those conspiracy theories — and the harassment that comes with them — are performed for the public. Within hours, anonymous Twitter users were in the mentions of students tweeting from their classrooms during the shooting, accusing them of being part of the conspiracy:
One Twitter thread, made just after midnight on the night of the attack, claimed to contain “Bombshell” information about Parkland. @Magapill (an account once approvingly retweeted by President Trump) shared a video interview with a student that has become the basis of a debunked Parkland conspiracy theory. The thread was retweeted more than 3,000 times.
All this happened before the Parkland students calling for gun control began their ascent to viral iconography. When they emerged, the campaign to discredit and debunk the Parkland students expanded.
Week 2: #MAGA Internet
“EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines,” read a headline on Gateway Pundit. The article was one of a handful on far-right publications to emerge after the first weekend following the shooting.
Week 2: #MAGA Internet
“EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines,” read a headline on Gateway Pundit. The article was one of a handful on far-right publications to emerge after the first weekend following the shooting.
[ Algorithms are one reason a conspiracy theory goes viral. Another reason might be you. ]
Hogg, along with González, had found their voices. In one CNN interview, the pair called for the National Rifle Association to “disband.” That interview was on the Monday after the attack. By Tuesday, an aide to Florida state Rep. Shawn Harrison (R-Tampa) was fired for telling a reporter that Hogg and González were “not students … but actors.” As evidence, the aide sent the reporter one of several YouTube videos promoting that conspiracy theory.
Even a former U.S. congressman, Jack Kingston, joined in on Twitter: “O really? ‘Students’ are planning a nationwide rally? Not left-wing gun control activists using 17yr kids in the wake of a horrible tragedy? #Soros #Resistance #Antifa #DNC”
The conspiracy spread quickly, and the algorithms noticed. Soon, a video claiming that Hogg was an actor was the No. 1 trending video on YouTube.
Week 3: Fights with social media companies
In early March, the conspiracy Internet — and some of its Trump supporters — turned the conspiracy theories surrounding the Parkland students into a crusade against what they saw as censorship on major Silicon Valley platforms.
After a conspiracy video trended on YouTube, the platform cracked down on videos and creators who were promoting the false belief that the Parkland students were hired actors or reading from scripts to promote gun control. Enter Alex Jones.
[ How Alex Jones turned the Parkland shooting into a week-long news cycle about himself ]
Jones’s main YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers, and he made several videos about Hogg, such as “David Hogg Can’t Remember His Lines In TV Interview,” in the weeks after the shooting.
After CNN reported that the channel was 2 strikes away from a YouTube ban for violating the platform’s community guidelines, Jones started talking about censorship. He claimed his channel was about to be deleted (it wasn’t); he fundraised to support a fight against his enemies. This blitz became a week-long news cycle that captured the attention of Infowars’ supporters and opponents alike.
March for Our Lives: The memes go mainstream
On the eve of the March for Our Lives, the NRA delivered a message to the Parkland students who organized it: “No one would know your names” if a gunman hadn’t killed 17 people at their school, said a host on NRATV.
The Parkland teens, as they took on such a polarizing issue, were always going to have opponents — including from more conservative Parkland students who also survived the massacre. But the deeply personal, conspiracy-minded attacks targeting Hogg, González and their fellow classmate activists have gone from the conspiracy fringes to a larger audience.
And after the viral image of González ripping up the Constitution, Rep. Steve King’s campaign Facebook page (R-Iowa) shared a mocking meme about her. The post refers to a patch of the Cuban flag on her jacket worn during the march:
“This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense.”
A day after the hoax targeting González went viral, the conservative blog Redstate published — and then updated — an article that falsely implied Hogg might not have been at school during the shooting at all.
“Something doesn’t add up” about Hogg’s whereabouts during the shooting, the original article claimed, focusing on a clip from an upcoming documentary where the student describes going home, grabbing his camera, and returning to interview students.
“It is not possible for him to have been in class and also have been at home, a three-mile bike ride away from campus,” the article concluded. “One of those stories is a lie. Hogg should explain himself, and quickly.”
But the entire premise of the Redstate article was inaccurate. After publication, Redstate published two “updates” at the top of the story, clarifying that the statements they cited as inconsistent were actually describing two separate events, several hours apart. Hogg was definitely on campus at the time of the shooting, and eventually went home and returned to school that evening to interview his gathered classmates just off campus.
It is almost not worth engaging with them anymore, they've gone so far into lala land. They are doing their damnedest to bully these kids into submission; it's embarrassing.
These kids are showing us textbook examples of losing their shit.
One of them puked on stage for Christ sakes.
The left is definitely going overboard with the NRA boogeyman shit, but the NRA is a very potent political force in this country and don't try to pretend it isn't. When a Fox Poll has such high numbers of people supporting various gun control efforts, including banning assault weapons, how do you argue that the NRA is only supporting the voice of the American people? It is a special interest group with a limited number of people's interests in mind and they should not be powerful enough to stop legislation that is strongly favored by the majority of Americans.
Nope..it's not a lie..just a smear--you, of course, choose not to comment on all the lies laid out in the article..because you have no intellectual honesty.By lying? By buying into lies? How is that, "speaking out against"..that's just lying...it devalues any point you might make..and in fact, makes you opponents arguments stronger.How the Parkland teens became villains on the right-wing Internet
Shame on all who have engaged in this:
Less than a week after 17 people died in Parkland, Fla., right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza began taunting some of the teenage survivors of the massacre. “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” he tweeted on Feb. 20, commenting on a photo showing Parkland survivors crying as state legislators voted down a bill to ban military-style weapons.
D’Souza wrote another tweet, “Adults, 1, kids 0.” Combined, the two tweets have more than 25,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
[ A fake photo of Emma González went viral on the far right, where Parkland teens are villains ]
Now, five weeks after the Parkland school shooting, D’Souza’s tweets seem almost quaint. As Emma González, David Hogg and the other Parkland teens fighting for gun control have become viral liberal heroes, the teens are villains on the right-wing Internet and fair game for the mockery and attacks that this group usually reserves for its adult enemies.
....
I got this far.
Putting them forth to make political attacks and then whining about them being politically attacked BACK, is the act of a disingenuous ass.
And there you have it..."I got this far"..refusing to even be informed...forming an opinion..without all the info..is the mark of a moron.
Has it occurred to you..that no one 'put them forward'? Not at first...this was their idea...yeah--everyone jumped on it....and the kids aren't 'messiahs"--but the level of hatred spewed upon them..by many posters here...is shameful.
I read far enough to get the point of the piece.
The kids in question are engaging is politics and are being engaged BACK.
They have played some serious hard ball.
This is about the Left missing the way they used to be able to say the most vile lies about the Right and the Right would just "be above it all" and let the vile lying left define a Conventional Wisdom that was full of shit.
SO they keep looking for spokesmen that they hope the Right will be afraid to speak out against.
FUCK THAT SHIT.
I don't care if you put the Mother Fucking Theresa up there, if she is making a political statement attacking me and mine, I will speak out against her.
And call her on her bullshit.
Are you saying that your points cannot stand on their own. honestly and on their merits?
This is the first paragraph of your op.
Less than a week after 17 people died in Parkland, Fla., right-wing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza began taunting some of the teenage survivors of the massacre. “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” he tweeted on Feb. 20, commenting on a photo showing Parkland survivors crying as state legislators voted down a bill to ban military-style weapons.
THat's not a lie.
That's commenting on their crying because they lost a vote.
Completely valid and reasonable.
If you wanted to discuss any "lies" you should have opened with those "lies" instead of burying them under a ton of partisan filler.
We see examples of rightwing fear and hate on this very forum, threads started by conservatives attacking and vilifying Parkland students.
Wow. They have NOT spoken truth.I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
How more 'real' can you get..than a sworn police officer...and no one knows..how they are going to react..when the bullets start flying.Odd..did they not have an armed cop in their school? How did that work out for them? Did he save any lives?I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
I think a bit more needs to be done, don't you? Armed guards....increased security...soon our schools will be indistinguishable from our jails.
Real armed security,not some loser who's afraid of his own shadow.
We have armed security at banks. Is money more important than our children?
Of course it's a gun grab. It's not a ploy, it's a demand. I suggest you listen for once so you know what they are asking for and why.I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
Most states already have the ability to have armed security don't they? That's a moot point.
Dr Love brought up intelligence with his "mouth breather" slur.
Funny it was fine for someone on your side to do it, but you had to comment on the response...
Funny, strange. Not funny ha ha.
Reality--that the majority of Americans want all sorts of real gun control. Including an assault weapons ban. That's what I was referring to.Continue to ignore reality. Makes no never mind to me.They have no gravitas, just the fact they were in a place where a tragedy happened. Most of them were probably left leaning anyway.
The left is using pure appeal to emotion in the hopes of rousing up the base. the problem is most of their base in in districts and States where they are already ahead.
I don't see how this helps them in districts they need to win, and States they need to win, that hold gun rights as something very serious.
I'm not sure the reality is what you think.
Polls like that are meaningless, Hell I support armed guards in schools but I won't use that # for any sort of proof.
What reality?
Define :"universal checks". Most people don't know what that means, but it sound easy and harmless so they say yes.
Require mental health checks. again, it sounds nice, but who gets to decide the result of the check? What if a location decides everyone has a mental issue so only the cops can have guns?
Raising the legal age to 21, so again we give people the responsibility to vote and fight in the military, but they can't have a gun, drink or in some places smoke....
Armed guards in schools are a good idea, but again, polls like this are worthless.
And the usual assault weapon bugaboo. it sounds bad some people will naturally say ban it.
How about we go to Alabama and see how many people want to ban abortion?
You just aren't able to counter most of our points without regressing to emotional appeals and accusations of "ist/ic/ism"
And again, my IQ vs. yours any day of the week "Dr"
You have very few "points" except those atop your heads -
About all ya got now are debunked and endlessly repeated conspiracy theories and lies.
Pathetic and sad
Like I said -- but maybe I said it somewhere else -- armed security might be helpful to a point, but it is not the magic solution on its own.Of course it's a gun grab. It's not a ploy, it's a demand. I suggest you listen for once so you know what they are asking for and why.I'm certainly not being mindless; I've been on gun threads for weeks now and that is where I am forming the opinion that the other side is losing their shit. They are. They are ranting about communism and Mao and overthrowing the government and bullying a bunch of very appropriate teenagers who got up on their hind legs and spoke truth in public. How fucking DARE they, huh, Dog?Let's see if I've got this right. A complete hack initiates a post consisting of nothing but cut and paste rants and another complete hack talks about the "other side" losing their shit.
Neither has enough awareness to realize that their preoccupation with being mindless little leftist warriors is part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If they really gave a shit about school shootings they'd be demanding armed security in our schools.
This is nothing more than a gun grab ploy.
Most states already have the ability to have armed security don't they? That's a moot point.
Why not do the obvious?
Put armed security in schools...problem solved.
Instead you want to trample on the rights of hundreds of millions of Americans with a solution that will fail to do a damn bit of good.
