Obviously this story has been all over the place in the last few days. But there is clearly more going on here than the original story conveyed. I’m not saying that everything is fine though.
The Original Video – I’m not saying it was Russians…
Let’s talk about the original video clip that was posted. You know, the one that showed the clip cropped to only show the confrontation between that student and the drummer? Yeah, that was posted on Twitter by someone with a handle of @2020fight which claimed to be a Californian School teacher (but with a picture of a Brazilian blogger). When called out, Twitter took this account offline. That particular Twitter account has a weird posting history that doesn’t fit the idea that its really a school teacher. It also appears that additional connected suspicious accounts were “amplifying” this original post. Full story here:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/tech/twitter-suspends-account-native-american-maga-teens/index.html
As such, it would seem there is a deliberate attempt to use this incident to raise hackles on both sides of the political divide. If the full video, original posted to Instagram, were what was original “viral”, this would have a been a much less explosive story.
I’ve seen several Facebook posts amongst friends that have gotten really testy and leading to some really angry things being said to one another. If this was a deliberate attempt to stir up trouble, its certainly working. And on that note, the regular media (on both sides) was very quick to jump on this version of the story without initially digging deeper. Personally, a major news outlet would do well to issue a public statement indicating they, like the rest of us, appear to have been “had” by a bad actor. Additionally, the “Social Media Mob” was quick to act on both sides and start finding additional, very incorrect details about the drummer, the high school student etc. Bad actors that do this stuff use that exact phenomenon to generate mass chaos and further drive the wedge. We, on all sides, need to be skeptical and try and look at this kind of situation from a “something isn’t right here”. Then, if it plays out that there is in fact a major issue (aka the original short clip was the full story), let the outrage flow. But right now, we’re all outraged without knowing why. Which again, plays right in to the hands of someone preying on us from the outside.