As has only now become known, in June 2020 the US police responded to internet rumors and chased Antifa buses with “domestic terrorists” – which did not exist.
In June 2020, the mood in the USA was heated: the protests of the “Black Lives Matter” movement were in full swing in several cities, shortly before then US President Donald Trump announced that he would declare Antifa groups terrorist organizations because he blamed them for the riots.
The rumors
It wasn't really surprising that the US police reacted quite nervously to Internet rumors at the time: Among other things, a fake photo of alleged Antifa buses was spread blocked
By the way, the photo turned out to be fake (see HERE and HERE and HERE ). The QAnon supporter wanted to fuel the conspiracy myth that George Soros was funding Antifa and the protests in the USA (although it would be pretty stupid to write that on a bus!).
At the same time, an Instagram story also went viral saying:
“I have heard from a reliable source that ANTIFA buses of nearly 200 people (domestic terrorists) are planning to infiltrate Redding and possibly cause diversion and destruction.”
Okay, we here are used to the phrase “ heard from a reliable source ” setting off all fake alarm bells, but the US police took these rumors very seriously in the tense situation.
It was known that fakes were being spread
Just a day later after the above tweet was posted, NBC reported (see HERE ) about a suspended Twitter account that claimed to be the "National Antifa Organization" but, according to a Twitter spokesperson, was affiliated with the Nazi group "Identity Evropa." connected.
Tweets from this and other associated accounts included text such as " Tonight is the night, comrades, " with a brown raised fist emoji, and " Tonight we say 'Fu** The City' and we move to the residential areas... the white residential areas." …. and we take what is ours .”
The tweets were clearly intended to create a mood against the protesting black population of America - who are also Antifa and are paid for by George Soros. Several hundred accounts that used related hashtags were suspended from Twitter.
The US police searched… and found no Antifa buses
Internal documents obtained by a nonprofit transparency group called Property of the People and provided to The Guardian show that U.S. police in rural areas of Shasta and Humboldt counties mobilized forces to stop antifa buses in order to protect the predominantly white population of the areas from the alleged threatening black population - apparently without checking the claims in more detail.
Even after it became clear that there were no Antifa buses, insisted that the buses were real — or at least the sightings of the buses. Although even the owner of the buses in the photo said that they have no labels at all.
A sheriff's spokeswoman told The Guardian that Sheriff Honsal " made these statements based on information provided to us by the California Highway Patrol ." However, the sheriff's office was not involved in the investigation at all, and no “Antifa bus” was spotted in Humboldt County.
A spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol (CHP) also explained that the authorities had no evidence of alleged Antifa buses other than the postings, and even a helicopter mission (which only lasted 12 minutes) did not produce any results.
Lack of media literacy
Experts told The Guardian that the internal documents are also very disturbing because they show how the Antifa conspiracy myths have inspired armed right-wing vigilantes to organize in response - sometimes in violent protests.
Ryan Shapiro, the executive director of Property of the People, who has studied how police monitor anti-fascist activists, showed that correspondence between agencies suggests they lack “ basic information literacy regarding news and social media . ” .
The CHP “relied on obviously unfounded right-wing social media posts to launch military-style air surveillance missions for non-existent Antifa convoys .”
Conclusion
The creators of the fakes at the time were of course likely to be up in arms about the published internal reports: their fake photos and spread rumors actually led to large-scale police operations, and the hated “Antifa” and the black population of the USA were portrayed in a bad light.
Funny? Absolutely not! Unfortunately, it shows that fakes and hoaxes lead to paranoia, which in this case caused countless police officers to search for non-existent Antifa buses and right-wing vigilante groups to take up arms due to such false reports.
For this reason, it is not only important to take action against fake creators and distributors, but also to train media literacy so as not to make the effects of such fakes even worse.
Sources: The Guardian , DerStandard
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Dangerous and evil radiation everywhere! That's why real QAnon patriots protect themselves with an EMF defense system - which is something different than what they think.
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )