Claims of “evidence” soon emerged: video footage on TikTok showing a beam of blinding white light, too straight to be lightning, zapping a residential neighborhood and sending flames and smoke into the sky. The video was shared many millions of times, amplified by neo-Nazis, anti-government radicals and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and presented as proof that America’s leaders had turned on the country’s citizens.

“What if Maui was just a practice run?” one woman asked on TikTok. “So that the government can use a direct energy weapon on us?”

The TikTok clip had nothing to do with the Maui fires. It was actually video of an electrical transformer explosion in Chile earlier in the year. But that didn’t stop a TikTok user with a habit of posting conspiracy videos from using the clip to sow more fear and doubt. It was just one of several similar videos and images doctored and passed off as proof that the wildfires were no accident.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    quoting some cunt that thinks Sandy Hook was staged… I think that the article shed light on the reason

    “If the truth doesn’t matter, and there is no accountability for these false beliefs, then people will start to act on them.”

    Because our justice system continuously fails to address the harm inflicted from spreading misinformation, it will continuously happen. Alex Jones shouldn’t have two fucking sticks to rub together at this point, let alone access to social media.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      I was banned from /r/worldnews because I said Alex Jones should be dead, alongside Rush Limbaugh.

      I don’t think I’m losing very much.

  • JustMy2c@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Well, the wildfires arnt an accident. They basically destroyed all of Hawai’i with their villas and water consumption…

    • JustMy2c@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Funny also how those same villa owners have donated to the gop and are now buying up the local properties for cheap from impoverished (gop voting) radicalized people, who get even more radicalized against the opposition by each of their own leaders actions.

      #guiIIotinethebillionaireclass