Only 38 minutes after a Madison, Wisconsin, teacher called 911 to report Monday’s school shooting, the lies began to spread.
The first one, in a post on X, said simply: “Taking bets on another trans shooter.” The post didn’t pick up much traction.
Without the context, dozens of X accounts used the Townhall video to speculate that the shooter was transgender.
His post received only about 47,000 views, compared to the millions of views the false claim got on the platform.
One X account said “the trans thing is obvious” from comments on an X account that appeared to belong to her.
Persons:
Alex Jones, ” Jones, Jones, Townhall, Shon Barnes, ”, Barnes, Ian Miles Cheong, didn’t, Cheong, nonbinary, Mark Bryant, Bryant, Matt Gaetz, Mark Pocan, Henry Fradella, —, Mikael Landén, Sarah Kate Ellis, ” Ellis, Natalie Rupnow, Samantha, Rupnow, TikTok, Elon Musk, Musk, Sam Hyde
Organizations:
Conservative, Madison Police, Police, Congressional, Caucus, Arizona State University, NBC News, American, of Public Health, GLAAD, Wisconsin, Meta
Locations:
Madison , Wisconsin, Houston, Philadelphia, Uvalde , Texas, Sweden