Musk has questioned whether the man identified by authorities as the shooter, Mauricio Garcia, really had an account on a Russian social media platform, and Musk suggested revelations about the shooter’s background may have been a ” Psyop” or psychological operation in which the public is misled as to the true details of the shooting.
Garcia proclaimed his white supremacist views on social media and sported Nazi tattoos. Authorities and independent researchers have confirmed his interest in right-wing extremism and white supremacy. When police killed Garcia he was wearing a patch that read “RWDS,” an acronym that stands for ” Right Wing Death Squad.”
“We know he had neo-Nazi ideas,” Texas Department of Public Safety regional director Hank Sibley said at a news conference Tuesday. “He had spots. He had tattoos.”
Musk also cast doubt on a Netherlands-based research group called Bellingcat, which published information about Garcia’s history online, when he tweeted that it “specializes in psychological operations.” He offered no evidence to back his claim, but the attack prompted a spate of harassment from Musk’s online fans against Bellingcat.
“This is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad PsyOp!” Musk wrote in a tweet that has been viewed more than 3 million times. Musk also responded to revelations about the shooter’s ideology with posts that suggested he didn’t believe them. “Very strange,” Musk once wrote. “This is getting weirder by the moment,” in others.
Garcia’s online history leaves little doubt that he held deeply negative views of Jewish people, people of color and women, according to an analysis of his posts conducted by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, an Alabama-based nonprofit organization that extremist groups tracked online.
“The posts and journal entries go back 10 years and show that Garcia had deeply held white supremacist and neo-Nazi beliefs, as well as misogynist and incel views, and a propensity for violence,” the organization concluded in its report. ” inc refers to “involuntarily celibate,” a term used by a mostly online movement of men blaming women for their lack of sexual and romantic opportunities.
musk fired much of the staff at Twitter dedicated to tracking down misinformation and toxic content, and has since become one source of misinformation itself. A new Twitter feature called “Community Notes” was created to allow users to add context or fact-checking claims themselves. But Musk’s own tweets about the shooter weren’t accompanied by any community notes on Wednesday.
Twitter didn’t respond to questions asking for comment on Musk’s misleading tweets, instead responding in its Now regular fashionwith an automated email containing only the excrement emoji.
Musk wasn’t the only celebrity user who tweeted false claims about the shooter.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., shrugged off Garcia’s avowed racist views and noted that he was Latino. “Only dumb white people would believe a Mexican gang member was killing people for white supremacy.”
Greene’s tweet ignores the fact that white supremacist groups have long tried to recruit Latinos; Some of these groups have created Spanish language versions of their websites. And Enrique Tarrioa Cuban-American, is the former leader of the Proud Boys, one of the country’s most influential far-right groups.
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