The assassination attempt on Donald Trump had only just taken place on Saturday evening local time in Butler, Pennsylvania, when speculation was already circulating on the Internet about who had fired the shots at the Republican presidential candidate and who was behind the attack.
Speculations were particularly rampant on Trump supporter Elon Musk’s platform X. There, the US broadcaster NBC counted 228,000 posts in which it was said that the attack was “staged”. They were accessed millions of times within hours. The search term “Antifa” was also at the top. And this led users who did not want to rely on reputable media and did not want to wait until the US authorities revealed the identity of the shooter to the name of the alleged attacker. It was an Italian Antifa activist called “Mark Violets”. But that was pure nonsense.
False information with false source
To make the lie more effective, the false information was also provided with a false source – the Butler police, where the assassination attempt on Trump took place. Of course, there was also a picture. It shows a bearded man with sunglasses and a black hat who – according to the saga – had distributed a video before the attack on Trump with the message: “Justice is coming.”
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None of this was true. As fact checkers have pieced together online, the picture shows the Italian sports video journalist Marco Violi. As he wrote on Instagram, he woke up in Rome with the news that he was involved in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. “I firmly deny being involved in this situation. I woke up in the middle of the night (2 a.m. in Italy to be precise) and received numerous notifications on Instagram and X. I am in Italy, I am in Rome and I had no idea what was happening.” The false news, he writes, probably has something to do with a group of “haters” who have been following him since 2018.
“Verified” X-Accounts participate
The FBI announced the identity of the actual assassin shot by snipers. According to the FBI, he is 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who lived in Bethel Park near Pittsburgh and registered as a Republican, but transferred a minimal amount to an organization that is campaigning against Trump.
This does not bother the mad circles on Elon Musk’s disinformation machine X. The false references to the alleged shooter also made the rounds on “verified” accounts, including the account “Wall Street Silver” with 1.3 million followers, as reported by the US broadcaster NBC and numerous other media outlets.
Alex Jones und Mike Collins
For the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was convicted in court, the “deep state” is responsible for the attack on Trump. This always includes the US secret service CIA.
Meanwhile, Republican Congressman Mike Collins shows that at the heart of his party there is a conspiracy theory that feeds on such fakes and is willing to use them to destroy American democracy in Donald Trump’s wake. The storming of the Capitol was the first failed act, and if Trump were elected, he would probably carry out the next one in his first days in office. His raised fist after he was able to stand up again, his calls of “Fight, Fight, Fight” and the echo of the cheering crowd indicate that Trump is turning himself into a martyr.
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Republican Congressman Mike Collins’ post about the assassination reads: “Joe Biden gave the order.” He is referring to another post in which a user recalls that Biden had said after the TV debate that went wrong for him that it was time to “hit the bullseye” at Donald Trump.
It took other X users to come forward and point out in an attached statement that the quote was taken out of context, that Biden’s comment was referring to the TV debate, and that there was no evidence whatsoever that the president was involved in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. We fear that this will not convince people like Mike Collins or those who thought an Italian Antifa activist had his finger on the trigger. They believe what they want to believe.
The British Guardian quotes disinformation researcher Amanda Rogers from the Century Foundation think tank as saying that the level of conspiracy theories following this attack is unparalleled (“a self-perpetuating spiral of shit”). We are living through a moment that subversives from the extreme left and right dreamed of in order to call for civil war. They find the platform they need on social media.
Agencies reports
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