Immediately after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, there were posts on social media about a man named "Bernie." The posts said he died shielding his students from gunfire. There was a picture of a man in glasses.
commenters said they had seen that face before
They were correct. The photograph and the name of the person were on some accounts that looked like they were from news organizations. The man was executed by the Taliban, according to one account. He was killed in Ukraine by a mine planted by the Russians. A third person claimed to have been murdered at the grocery store.
The conclusion was obvious for those who were interested in conspiracy theories: "Bernie" was employed by the left to drum up sympathy for causes like gun control." The mainstream media was used to prop up theories that major tragedies were fakes.
The conspiracy theorists were incorrect. He isn't a crisis actor, and news organizations aren't behind the posts Is the photo included? Jordie Jordan is 36 years old. He didn't have anything to do with the posts.
The posts are part of a yearslong harassment campaign against him. The posts have spread fake information about high-profile tragedies to the delight of many people.
In a video call, Mr. Jordan denied having anything to do with it. They just take a picture and put me in it.
According to an analysis conducted last week, the full version of "Bernie" has appeared more than 8,700 times on the social networking site. Since the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, the name has been mentioned more than 1,200 times on the social networking site.
The harassment began as a joke at Mr. Jordan. Mass shootings and other tragedies have become an amusement for a subset of the online world because of the misinformation campaign. The initial posts are meant to troll and sometimes fuel rumors that the massacres are fake.
The trauma suffered by survivors and victims' families is compounded by the false stories they are told. After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, the false statements lead to harassment from conspiracy theorists.
WhitneyPhillips said that it made it all into a joke and dehumanized the events.
Mr. Jordan has nearly 440,000 subscribers who watch him play video games on the internet. He lost his job at a steel mill and decided to play Call of Duty for online fans. He was criticized for his comments on lowering the age of consent and for using gay and racial slurs. He said that he apologized profusely for the mistake of his juvenile thought process and that he lives with it every day.
He said he first learned of the meme from a post on the website. He took a photo on his front porch and posted it on his social media accounts.
He said he had barely been troubled by the campaign initially, calling it "such a small thing" compared with the multiple times he'd been trolled.
After raising tens of thousands of dollars for weight-loss surgery and then dragging his feet, Mr. Jordan thought he had become the target of serious trollies. Photos that he posted from a hospital bed as proof that he had completed the operation were later used in fake reports of "Bernie's" death
The harassment may have started earlier after Mr. Jordan made offensive comments during gaming sessions.
He thinks that the people posting his photo are giving them a form of power. Making someone feel bad orssing with them gives them a feeling of belonging.
Ms.Phillips said that the joke is taken at face value by a large portion of people who are already distrustful of society's institutions.
She said that it makes us on a dangerous course. It makes it harder for us to be grounded in the same reality.
Researchers said that such prank have a history. There have been several mass killings, including a shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., in 2015, where one man has been wrongly named as the shooter.
"I don't think you can find an event of significant magnitude where this doesn't happen in the aftermath." People are promoting false-flag and crisis-actor theories within 20 minutes after the event.
The cycle was described as "almost factory production."
The photo of Mr. Jordan reappears in social media posts from accounts that mimic news outlets. There was a report last year that the Taliban had executed a man named "Bernie" in Afghanistan, which was amplified by another suspended account.
A fake account with 17 followers that has also been suspended claimed that he was a right-wing journalist.
The post said that it was a journalist who had been caught in the crossfire. The account with no followers describes itself as a fake account that could be deleted later to prove how easy it is to fool people. CNN was chastised by several replies for its faulty journalism.
The New York Times inquired about the suspension of most of the accounts for violating the policy against deceptive and misleading identities.
In line with our abusive behavior policy, we prohibit content that denies mass murder or other mass casualty events took place, where we can verify that the event happened, and when the content is shared with abusive intent.
George Galloway, a former member of the British Parliament who hosted a program called "The Mother of All Talk Shows" on the Russian-owned news outlet Sputnik, made a false statement on the air in February. The first American casualty of the Ukraine crisis was depicted in a photo posted on CNN Ukraine. The account is not associated with CNN.
None of the people who lied, the people who carried their lies, the people who believed in it will face consequences for it. The show can be watched from his account on the video sharing website.
He apologized on the night of the broadcast, saying it was an "honest mistake" in a fast- moving live show.
Russia's representative to the UN used fake CNN accounts to criticize the mainstream media.
The main battle is not inUkraine, it is with lies and fakes of the MSM. CNN said that the CNN Ukraine and CNN Afghanistan accounts are fakes that have been suspended for violating its policy against impersonation.
In a message this week, Mr. Polyanskiy said that he had forgotten about the post since he put it up, and that he had no idea who the person was.
If you imply that my criticism lacks credibility, I will not agree with it.
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