When X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk changed his platform’s verification system, he ushered in a new reality where fringe conspiracy theorists could easily promote false claims about breaking news. That happened again shortly after the deadly mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, as Media Matters found numerous heavily followed verified accounts claiming that the tragedy was actually a “false flag” attack that was staged or orchestrated by the government.

As the Guardian defined it, the concept of a false flag event “is the idea that powerful forces routinely arrange massacres or terrorist atrocities, and make it appear as if some other individual or group did them, in order to achieve their sinister political goals.” Conspiracy theorists have routinely claimed that mass shootings and other atrocities, including 9/11, were false flags.

Following the deadly October 25 mass shootings in Maine, numerous verified X accounts with tens of thousands of followers claimed that they were a “false flag” or planned by the government.

Rumble host and bigot Laura Loomer, who seems to have the direct attention of former President Donald Trump, raised doubts about the shooting on her formerly banned X account, which has more than 630,000 followers.

  • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
    35·
    1 year ago

    I’m just going to call it now, that this was more than likely an MK Ultra type of operation, conducted by CIA/Gladio to get more ‘support’ for the cause.

    — QAnon John (@TPV_John)

    I think what’s interesting is the “false flag” folks spout off things that are shown to be former Soviet disinformation. Like the whole Gladio false flag is old ass disinformation that was spread around to elicit this very thing. Like good example of how these folks eat up bullshit can be seen here with Matt Gaetz entering into the record actual Chinese disinformation and then having an actual expert shut him down.

    It’s like none of them stopped for a second to think, “You know what? It could be that someone is lying to you about someone lying to you.” And that’s the thing about them, they conflate being a contrarian with critical thinking. Like there is a distinct difference between being a cynic and being a critic and the really important differences are completely lost on them.

    Of the examples the article gives, every single one of them fails at “Considering alternative systems of thought” or as some call it “playing devil’s advocate for your own point.” Which is an important aspect of critical thinking. All of them just launch into their speculation and the “evidentiary support” for that speculation not stopping to think about things like:

    • The shooter was reporting as having mental issues and was express as a concern as far back as July of this year.
    • Before that others around him already had concerns.
    • There is an entire list of events that lead up to this shooting.
    • The State of Maine is leading the investigation, manhunt, and ideally the prosecution of this person.
    • An independent body such as The State of Maine would represent an issue with any attempt keep a false flag operation hidden.

    All of the body of evidence for these folks is mostly boiled down to “oh isn’t it a coincidence…” and then the event that’s coincidental varies from person to person, but it all boils down to them thinking various things somehow align with each other. And, I cannot stress this enough, IS NOT EVIDENCE. Not to yank out the old meme but “correlation is not causation” and every single tweet given as example in the linked article massively fails at applying this adage.

    Like this guy (@MichaelJaco9) who writes:

    Maine mass shooting has markings of a false flag, gun grab and targeting of gun owners

    And then links to an hour long rambling on why he thinks that. (and I watched that whole thing and I highly recommend no one else does, you will lose brain cells) And it basically boils down to “it must be a false flag because it’ll stir animosity towards conservatives”.

    And just as an aside, I’m sorry that I am about to rant on this, but that dude is fucking idiot and I just need to vent for a second, bear with me.

    And NO. It’s because 18 fucking innocent people (some which were kids) were just murdered and things like “we shouldn’t give guns to mentally unsound folks” is something some of you Conservatives want to argue against. Yes, that will stir passions, not because you are a Conservative but because of your fucking trivializing of this loss of life due to a lobby that wants to maintain an industry. That’s what stirs the animosity, no Hillary Clinton required. Shockingly, some folks actually value life that is not their own. Who fucking knew?! Excuse myself, but that dude is a fucking waste of skin and I really dislike myself for having wasted one hour on his dumb shit. I would have been more entertained going to visit my methed up Aunt in Chattanooga and talking philosophy (and it would have been more informed by massive orders of magnitude) than listening to whatever the fuck that drivel was on his Bumble account.

    Deep breath

    So, many of these “eyes wide open” folks are actually quite the opposite. And the thing is, there’s a danger in linking false flag to conspiracy theorist. Because there is indeed history of actual false flags, like say during World War II and what not, but there’s an actual evidentiary standing upon which those are built. Lots of people have critically reviewed the related information. And what these people are doing are just acting the cynic and basically sucking each other’s ego dick to inflate their own importance, aka an echo chamber. And what these people do is a massive disservice to people who ACTUALLY STUDY HISTORY.

    I just want to buy some of these people a giant hardcover history book and toss it (metaphorically) at their heads. But that would just be a waste of a good history book.