The moment the news of the Las Vegas shooting appeared in the media, many jumped on the story by adding their own interpretations and embellishments. Facebook and Google admitted that false news stories about the Attack got into their systems and were amplified by the attention the stories received when the postings went viral.
An example of fake news was one that incorrectly named the shooter in the attack. This post was rapidly spread on Facebook. On Google, it was highlighted as one of the “Top Stories.” Both services removed the false posts when they were discovered; however, the damage had already been done.
Other posts politicized the Las Vegas shooting and claimed to have information about the shooter’s motivation, when no such information was actually available. ABC News reports that fake news stories are still there despite the efforts of Google and Facebook to remove them.
Conspiracy theories about the Las Vegas Shooting
Alex Jones of Info Wars was one of the first ones to claim that there was a second shooter. He initially made this claim because of some video footage that shows a flash coming from another room at the Mandalay Bay Hotel during the gunfire. Subsequently, it was determined that the flash seen during the attack was a strobe. Then, Jones retracted his statement about that detail.
Jones continues to claim additional people were shooting that day. He said that bullets were breaking windows of other hotels, people in those hotels were told to get down on the floor, and that empty shell casings from another shooter were found in hotels as far away as one mile from the Mandalay Bay Hotel, where police officers stopped the attack.
Lack of information about the Las Vegas attack
When information is not available, such as the lack of an explanation by police officers for the motivation of the shooter, conspiracy theories immediately pop up to proffer an explanation for the attack.
Alex Jones claims that there are major ISIS connections to the shooter. ISIS publicly claimed to be responsible for the attack but offered no evidence to prove this.
Jones claims the attack is a “false flag” event, orchestrated by police officers for the globalists to cause an uprising in America with leftist groups like the ANTIFA, which could hypothetically lead to Civil War.
Las Vegas shooter left a ‘suicide note’
Leaked photos of the hotel room where the shooter created the carnage showed his dead body on the floor and a note on a table. Many claimed this was a suicide note. Some said that it was part of a cover-up to hide who was really responsible for the Las Vegas shooting by the authorities, who kept the contents of the note from being released. In an interview with CBS News, Las Vegas police officers finally cleared up what was written in the note.
They said it was information about wind, distance, and trajectory, used by the shooter to target the victims.
With all the information, misinformation, and speculation about the response of the police officers, the shooter, and the motivation for the attack, it is important not to believe anything without carefully evaluating its credibility.
