Fake social media posts in the past week sparked looting in Scottsdale, lockdowns of Arizona malls and armed patrols by militia members.
Now, posts on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Nextdoor are warning that armed black marauders are stalking suburban neighborhoods.
Forget that the posts aren't true, have suspect origins and can't easily be traced. They are being shared in fear-laced texts and screenshots and echoed grimly by politicians as fact.
The posts are not unique to Arizona. A wave of nearly identical social media posts is spreading from California to Florida, using the unrest and uncertainty of national protests to spread distrust and racial division.
The dog whistles, racist tropes and calls to carry rage to white communities might seem deliberate and coordinated. But social media analysts say the posts are united only in their attempts to sow mayhem and chaos.
"The same messages were going out on my neighborhood Facebook page," said Julie Smith, a social media expert and instructor of media literacy at Webster University in St. Louis. "Don't believe this stuff,"
She said there isn't a clear motive or a political ideology behind the posts. "Some people just want to see the world burn."
The fake factor hasn't stopped people from reacting to the posts. Hundreds of looters ransacked Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall shortly after posts Saturday night urged protesters to bring their "rage, anger, sadness and hurt" to the upscale shopping center.
Nearly identical posts Sunday forced the closure of malls across metro Phoenix. Police barricaded mall entrances and set up perimeter patrols. Members of militia groups broke curfew to protect businesses and stop looters.
A flurry of outrageous posts on Monday spread concerns about invasions of white neighborhoods by black radicals. They warned of rape, pillage and murder.
Police agencies in the suburbs in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami and South Bend, Indiana, responded to threats of coordinated looting on social media.
Some agencies also tried to tamp down on reports that wealthy communities were being targeted by outside groups. Officials said they had no reason to believe the reports were credible.
Police in Scottsdale described the threats as unsubstantiated. Officials said they were monitoring social media traffic but said the posts warning of suburban incursion were not credible.
"We are aware of a widely dispersed message referencing targeted attacks on Scottsdale residences and women in our community," Scottsdale police posted on its Twitter page on Sunday. "At this time the message is unsubstantiated. If you see something suspicious dial 911."
Scottsdale Mayor Jim Mayor Lane took the social media threats seriously. He said protesters crossed a line by calling for a raid on Scottsdale to “harm whites.”
Lane said the instigators of the post were tied to Antifa, a loosely organized anti-fascist movement, which he described as "hugely violent." Lane didn’t have any evidence to suggest Antifa was behind the threats beyond his own observations.
“You can see them even on TV last night, the way they dress, the materials they bring, the spray bottles of milk, they’re dressed in black. … They don’t hide themselves terribly well.”
How fake messages can go mainstream
The fake posts are capitalizing on protests and riots that have raged in several U.S. cities since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Floyd, who was black and unarmed, is seen in a video lying face down on a city street and begging for mercy while a police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. The officer was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder. Three other officers who were on the scene were charged with aiding and abetting.
The Arizona Republic analyzed a post shared on Nextdoor to illustrate how fake messages can go mainstream.
Nextdoor is a website designed to let neighbors connect. Say, discuss new restaurants. Or get a bridge game going. Or a running club. But the site also helps neighbors connect to far-away crimes.
The post read: “They’re also breaking into Scottsdale homes to rape and beat 'white' women. Please keep your doors locked, your guns loaded, and keep safe in your homes.”
The post was shared by Willow Aldridge, who was marked as living in a neighborhood between Raintree and Thunderbird roads, east of the 101 freeway in Scottsdale.
A search of public records showed no individual by that name living in that area.
A user with the name Willow Aldridge was listed on Twitter as living in Paradise Valley. The account only had four posts, all from a speaking event for conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro in Phoenix in 2018. One of the tweets read, “Never been so excited, toast some liberals! #BenShapiroLive”
Fake fear posts hint at authority to lend them credibility. The anonymous authors often brag of connections to law enforcement and purport to share special intelligence.
The posts almost always come from someone who is connected to someone in law enforcement, Smith said.
"Every one of these has the same (law enforcement) caveat," she said, adding posts shared in her St. Louis neighborhood cited South County police sources and information.
But tracking the posts to a source is often impossible. Messages are shared via text and screenshots and then reposted on other sites, obliterating the original sender.
Take an Instagram post Sunday warning people to "PLEASE be careful" because Scottsdale and Glendale were being targeted.
The post includes overlapping screenshots of a cellphone text message as it was shared from one person to the next on Snapchat. There is no way to tell the origin of the message.
"I had 3 people from Phoenix PD, Phoenix Fire and my brother, who is state police ... he is working the riots in Phoenix on the back end with Homeland Security," according to a screenshot. "They have now received info from several inside informants that they are planning to start raping and murdering white women."
The post urgently implored recipients to take heed.
"My brother never panics over this type s--t and he's telling me to stay close to home with the kiddos for the next week or so," according to the message. "He's also telling me to carry my pistol if I leave home."
How fake posts spur responses
Posts threatening neighborhood mayhem inspired members of citizen militia groups to respond.
Jennifer Harrison, the founder of AZ Patriots, said a coordinated network of like-minded individuals began patrols of their neighborhoods. Some, she said, were on their rooftops with firearms.
On Sunday, Harrison said she and her boyfriend, Michael Pavlock, drove through malls and landmarks on the region’s west side: Westgate, Desert Sky Mall and a Cabela’s sporting goods store they feared might be burglarized for its ammunition.
“We couldn’t tell what was real and what was exaggerated,” Harrison said in a phone interview. “We took no chances.”
Harrison said the group was active until 4 a.m., sending in reports from Gilbert to Surprise. Though no one reported any sign of trouble.
“We were not going to cower down in our closets hiding from a bunch of thugs, criminal anarchists, that want to seek chaos and terror in our community,” she said.
Harrison said she didn’t care that her mobile patrols violated the statewide curfew imposed by Gov. Doug Ducey to maintain order.
“It didn’t matter to me at that point,” she said. If asked, Harrison said, she would claim she was “driving around looking for food. Wink, wink.”
Some posts tried to instill fear on the other side of the political spectrum. A different message with the same intent.
A Tweet using the hashtags #phoenixprotests and #downtownphoenix shared a warning Thursday "from a friend at DPS" that white supremacists were going to retaliate against protesters.
"We are hearing from official channels of law enforcement and not in the news ... this Friday and Saturday nights are to be retribution nights with extreme white supremacist groups," a poster named Baby Tee said in a Tweet to 1,409 followers. "People of color, any color and law enforcement/fire safety are the preferred targets."
As with other posts, the Tweet shows a screenshot of a Snapshot message without any identifying information that would indicate the source. Baby Tee did not respond to a direct message Thursday.
How people process fake messages
Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio spent the week answering calls from constituents worried about posts saying troublemakers were roaming residential streets, looking for homes to invade and white women to rape.
“Stuff that creates fear travels faster than good news,” DiCiccio said. And when information comes, he said, people immediately decide whether to believe it or dismiss it, based on beliefs they’ve already accepted.
“We have to put it in a box that we understand,” DiCiccio said.
DiCiccio said the threats were posted on Nextdoor, He said that residents of Ahwatukee, a neighborhood tucked behind South Mountain, are so connected by the site that a car burglary on the east end of the community is felt 11 miles away in the remote foothills.
“People believe it is happening in their neighborhood,” DiCiccio said.
Add to that established feeling the threat of marauders looking to terrorize homes.
“The ‘we’re going to come and rape your women’ thing, that resonated big,” DiCiccio said. “Like wildfire.”
DiCiccio said he was fielding calls from residents telling him they were noticing people that they believed didn’t belong in their neighborhood. The calls likely came not from true suspicion but a heightened sense of alert. DiCiccio said he told the callers that everyone had the right to be on every street in the city.
One person asked DiCiccio if he should temporarily move his family out of his Arcadia home and spend time with his mother in another part of the metro area.
DiCiccio said he told him that violence was unlikely and that he was assured police were investigating the threat, but that the man should do what made him comfortable.
DiCiccio said he thought the threat tapped into something primal: people’s desire to protect their family and home.
“I’m convinced that this is not a small thing that occurred here,” he said, adding people won't easily forget the fear instilled in them.
How fake posts can slip past our defenses
Posts that feel urgent and tap an immediate emotional response are the ones most likely to be fake, Smith said.
"If it generates strong emotional responses in you, then you should check it," she said. "Those are clues."
Smith, who teaches students how to identify and debunk bogus social media posts, used the May 20 shooting at Westgate Entertainment District in Glendale to demonstrate her methods on YouTube. It took her about two minutes to show a post claiming to have information on a second shooter was false.
Smith first raises issues about grammatical mistakes, then moves on to the profile of the poster himself, who is from Nigeria and has 96 followers. Then she uses Google's reverse image tool to source a photograph of the alleged second shooter and then search his name. The same man has been named in other shootings he hasn't committed.
"Breaking news brings out the fakers and the photoshoppers," Smith said in the YouTube video.
Breaking news often serves as the motivation, Smith said. She said news coverage around the riots and protests that have fueled a national conversation on race relations is going to be a prime target.
"I'm not sure it is about the riots or the protests, although they are convenient targets," Smith said. "It is whatever the story is of the day."
Social media just exacerbates the issue, she said.
"Unfortunately, news by many is considered Facebook snippets," she said. "Facebook is not a valid source of information on any topic."
The first rule of social media is knowing who is posting, Smith said. "Who is the source?"
Cami Parrish, an Arizona State University student, agrees. When she saw posts this week about rape and murder in Scottsdale, she was instantly suspicious.
She checked the source to find out where it came from. A quick check on Nextdoor revealed similar posts. She decided to call it out on Twitter.
"This is not real," the 18-year-old incoming sophomore wrote. "Nobody is planning on raping or beating any white women tonight."
Parrish said she was worried the posts could lead to violence against otherwise peaceful protesters.
"I was basically trying to damage control," Parrish said.
After a few negative responses, Parrish got a flood of support, 786 likes and 206 retweets. Posters said they, too, had doubts about the fear-mongering and race-baiting.
"My main goal was trying to stop it from circulating," Parrish said. "Sharing things that originated from a 12-year-old on Snapchat is not a good idea."
How to spot fake social media posts
Julie Smith, a social media expert and instructor of media literacy at Webster University in St. Louis, teaches students how to debunk a fake post in minutes. Here are some of her key suggestions:
- Know the sources. Check who made the post. Examine profiles. Do they have a history? Followers?
- Beware of emotion. News sources are often restrained, not visceral. If a post causes you to react, then you should be on guard.
- Check the post. Can you identify where it originated?
- Examine photographs. Research the image. Look to see where it came from.
- Search names. If you don't recognize a name, look it up.
- Breaking news. Be extra cautious about posts purporting to break news; scammers often try to mislead people seeking quick news.
- Vary news sources: Don't rely on one source for information. Don't get news from social media for factual information, it's not reliable.
Robert Anglen investigates consumer issues for The Republic. If you're the victim of fraud, waste or abuse, reach him at robert.anglen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8694. Follow him on Twitter @robertanglen
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