The production of fake news has become an equal-opportunity profession….Buzzfeed uses Snopes to fact-check. Snopes has been charged with being a non-credible fact-checking service.
We’re Keeping A Running List Of Hoaxes And Misleading Posts About The Nationwide Police Brutality Protests
Buzzfeed News, June 1, 2020
As thousands protest the death of George Floyd, BuzzFeed News is debunking the hoaxes and disinformation that have been spreading online.
The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer who used a knee chokehold on him, has sparked protests all over the country. As they gained traction, so did online hoaxes and disinformation about them. BuzzFeed News is keeping a running list of the false and misleading information.
Hi. I’m keeping track of any disinformation, hoaxes, or out-of-context photos and videos about the Minneapolis protests. If you see something, send it to me. My DMs are open and my email is [email protected]
Before passing on any online rumor, take the time to verify it. This can be done by checking how recently an account has been created, keeping a close eye on information from news outlets, or searching online to find another source.
1. TikTok is not blocking hashtags related to Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. The company said it’s a bug affecting “words at random.” A search of TikTok confirms that the issue has since been fixed.
Twitter / @revengedja
2. A photo showing a McDonald’s on fire is not from the Minnesota protests. It shows a restaurant that burned down in Pennsylvania in 2016. The account looks like a news organization but describes itself as a parody account in the bio.
Twitter / @breaking9ll
3. There are unverified claims that a man filmed smashing the windows of an auto business in Minnesota is a member of the local police department. The St. Paul Police Department denied that the man in the video is the employee identified. As of now, the man’s identity remains unconfirmed. We will continue to monitor for updates.
4. This tweet, claiming that the poster’s brother went missing amid the protests in Minnesota, is false. It garnered over 30,000 retweets, and the person running the account later admitted they don’t know the man in the photo.
The person behind the account told BuzzFeed News in a direct message that they did not expect the tweet to get so much traction.
“I apologize to everyone that I potentially worried or caused any work to help find my ‘missing brother’ and that I never intended it to get such a wide range of people finding it from the start of my tweet,” he said. He declined to reveal his identity except to say he’s 16 years old and living in the US.
5. This is another false post about someone’s relative going missing in Minnesota. The man pictured is the late Charles Chamblis, a Minnesota photographer who captured “the best of black life” in the state, according to the Star Tribune.
Twitter / Star Tribune
6. This video does not show an explosion inside a police precinct in Minneapolis. It shows the explosion that occurred in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin in 2015.
Twitter / YouTube
7. This does not show a fire at a Walmart in Minneapolis. It shows a burning apartment building in that city.
Twitter / @rntk___
8. Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who used a knee chokehold on George Floyd, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. This tweet falsely claims he was only placed in protective custody.
Twitter / @egyptianweeknd
9. This image is from the Ferguson protests of 2014, not Minneapolis. It was known as the “peace train” and was not stolen from a mall then, either.
Twitter / @kekenopalmertho
10. After CNN journalists were arrested live on TV, a tweet from the Minnesota State Patrol claimed they didn’t know they were members of the media, despite the reporters saying so. The video of the arrest clearly shows they said they were with CNN.
11. A Minnesota TV reporter did not get caught playing “fake gunshot sounds” during a peaceful protest. A viral Twitter video showed KSTP reporter Richard Reeve being confronted by protesters who accused him of disrupting the event with gunshot sounds. But the station says that’s not what happened.
@dyllyp / _eden______
A statement issued by KSTP news director Kirk Varner said Reeve was filming the peaceful protest on his phone when he captured what he thought was the sound of gunshots.
“Wanting to confirm the sound he heard, he went to play back the video on his cell phone which indeed shows an individual shooting into the air,” Varner said, adding that a group of protesters approached Reeve as he was reviewing the footage.
The station’s statement includes the footage shot by Reeve, which does show a man in the street firing several shots from a handgun.
This version of events is also supported by the video shared on Twitter of Reeve speaking with protesters. At the very end, he lifts up his phone to show the footage and says, “This is what I saw.”
The station said other eyewitnesses confirmed that Reeves was reviewing protest footage filmed on his phone.
“There have been false accusations that our reporter was playing the sound of the gunshots to upset the crowd, and that is simply not true,” Varner said. “Also not true is that the sound of gunshots was falsely used in our reporting.”
The station chose not to air the gunshots “because we felt it ultimately did not contribute to our efforts to impartially portray the events that were happening in a rapidly developing situation.”
12. The Minnesota Freedom Fund is warning about imitators accepting donations. The organization’s real website is minnesotafreedomfund.org
Hey y’all, there is a fraudulent Venmo account circulating with our name on it. At this time, the Minnesota Freedom Fund DOES NOT HAVE A VENMO. Do NOT send funds there.
13. Makeup is not adequate protection against facial recognition technology, despite claims made in a viral tweet.
Detected 3 out of 4 with @faceplusplus. That’s just a still- not a video stream or enrolment station. CV Dazzle is performance art, it hasn’t worked in years. https://t.co/ICJHCvf7Qh
14. This account looks like it belongs to a CBS reporter, but it’s fake and has been spreading disinformation about the protests. It uses the name of Eric Sevareid, a legendary reporter who passed away in 1991.
Twitter/Screenshot
15. There is no proof that members of the National Guard depicted in the videos are underage, despite viral claims saying they are. “All personnel mobilized with the Georgia National Guard are of legal age,” a National Guard spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.
Twitter/Screenshots
16. A video posted by Twitter user Max Blumenthal falsely implied that a man in it was an undercover police officer and not a CNN reporter. The man’s colleague confirmed that he does, indeed, work for CNN.
Max Blumenthal decides this guy who tells him he is a CNN reporter is an undercover cop acting a provocateur. 23k RT’s. Complete disinformation. CNN head of comms: those are my colleagues, I’ve worked with them for years.
17. Websites masquerading as news outlets are spreading false information about the Black Lives Matter protests.
Screenshots
If a website doesn’t have reporters’ names or a comprehensive “about” or “contact us” page, look for another source for the articles it has published.
Screenshots
18. This video of a man kicking a gas canister away in midair is from protests in Lebanon last year, not recent Black Lives Matter protests in the US, a reverse image search shows.
Screenshot
19. Fake images of an “antifa playbook” are circulating across social media. The images are from at least 2015.
15/An interesting piece of disinformation that has been circulating in QAnon is this image. Which is recycled disinformation from 2015 claiming “Soros paid protestors to riot in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Grey” https://t.co/BSJZ1W70gI
20. This video is from last month, not this weekend. It depicts a California police officer pinning a 14-year-old boy to the ground, BuzzFeed News reported at the time.
Twitter/Screenshot
21. Uncle Hugo’s bookshop in Minneapolis is warning that “there is NO sanctioned fundraising at this time” despite a GoFundMe fundraiser that has collected over $18,000.
Screenshots/Facebook/GoFundMe
22. This description of a graphic video of a man being beaten up is misleading, Dallas police told BuzzFeed News. The man in the video is in the hospital in stable condition and was not defending a store, they said.
Twitter/Screenshots
“The victim went to the 2200 block of N. Lamar Street (House of Blues) carrying a machete to allegedly protect his neighborhood from protesters,” a Dallas police spokesperson said in a statement. “The victim confronted protesters while holding the machete and was subsequently assaulted by the protesters. He was transported to an area hospital where he remains in stable condition. This remains an ongoing investigation.”
23. Organizers are warning that an unassociated email address is being used to lure people into protests that were not organized by Black Lives Matter Atlanta.
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 Any e-mail coming from [email protected] is NOT coming from @Mvmnt4BlkLives or allies in ATL. Please be mindful that movement is being infiltrated at the moment and people are being lured into unsafe environments. For info on the week of action in GA, follow @AJustGeorgia.
24. No, a protester wasn’t trying to board a bus with an ATM. The story was a prank from last year.
Screenshots / Twitter
25. The man on the right is not Derek Chauvin, Snopes reports. He is an online troll and vocal supporter of President Trump named Jonathan Riches.
Screenshot/Twitter
26. This protester in Chicago did not steal a police horse. He goes by the name Dread Head Cowboy and is known in the community for riding his horse in the city and surrounding areas.
Twitter / YouTube
He shared several videos and livestreams that show him riding around downtown Chicago during recent protests. In one, he jokingly yelled that he’d stolen the horse from the police, which caused some to think he was being serious.
View this post on Facebook
27. The Oakland Zoo says no tigers have escaped, despite online rumors of a tiger wandering the streets.
Tigers are all accounted for at the Oakland Zoo. They just checked and confirmed.
28. An anonymous account created Monday is sharing a fake photo, claiming it’s of the protests. It’s hiding the replies that correctly say the image is from the TV show Designated Survivor.
Twitter/Screenshots
29. The context in which this video is being shared is misleading. There’s no indication that the man being arrested is an FBI agent. The poster of one of the earliest versions of the video also said it was filmed a year ago.
Screenshots/Twitter/Instagram
30. Reports of an internet blackout in Washington, DC, are unverified. According to NetBlocks, a nonprofit organization that tracks service blackouts worldwide, there were no disruptions in DC over the last 48 hours. However, its monitoring would not cover technology that can throttle signal in a small localized area.
ℹ️ Real-time network data from Washington, DC show no indication of a mass-scale internet disruption overnight or through the last 48 hours. Observable fixed-line and cellular connectivity remain stable at the present time. We continue monitoring #DCBlackout
31. A screenshot of a message threatening to kill “white families” is being widely shared. It was allegedly posted to a buy-and-sell Facebook group. The account that posted it is not an official Black Lives Matter account and these types of threats are not part of the BLM movement or message. Anyone could have created the account and posted the message.
We reached out to a moderator of the Facebook group and to a user who allegedly saw the message, and will update with any additional information.
32. A giraffe did not escape from a zoo in Minnesota. The images used in tweets and on Snapchat are from a YouTube video uploaded in 2012.
Twitter / @killdremo
33. A video from a protest in Boston does not show police officers destroying their own vehicle. The officers were removing a windshield that was damaged by protestors.
Twitter / @mattemattmatte / Via Twitter: @mattemattmatte
Here’s an earlier video of the windshield being smashed:
Here’s the real video of what happened to that police car. There’s videos out there showing that the cops staged the damaged to their own car. #bostonprotest @Diggle_B_Mason @nucleotoad
34. There have been no credible reports of police using live rounds or being authorized to use live rounds at any of the protests around the US.
Screenshot/Twitter
35. One viral tweet showing a huge influx of donations has mischaracterized where they were sent. They were given to Touchstone Mental Health in Minnesota, a nonprofit focusing on mental illness, not a low-income housing center.
Twitter/Screenshots
36. The man who drove a truck into Minneapolis protesters is not a Ukrainian soldier, Kyiv Post reported. They share a name, but look nothing alike.
Twitter/Screenshots