In the wake of the attempted assassination of former United States president Donald Trump, many conspiracies are swirling online, with some convinced that outside sources orchestrated the shooting.
Video of Saturday’s shooting, which shows Trump raising his hand to his right ear at the sound of bullets and then quickly crouching behind his podium, was rapidly — almost instantaneously — dissected by social media users. Some claimed the images of Trump’s defiantly raised fist were proof that the presidential candidate staged the whole event, while others speculated that U.S. President Joe Biden was behind it.
As misinformation floods social media, Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, warned that the absence of clear information creates space for conspiracy theories to proliferate.
“This is not uncommon at all, that acts of violence, very frightening and serious moments like this are met almost immediately with a deluge of alternative explanations as people seek an answer,” he said.
Ware, the author of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America, noted that while conspiracy theories and assassinations often go hand in hand, what surprises him this time is the spread of misinformation on the left.
“Usually we look at conspiracy theories on the right as being more significant. This time it seems to be conspiracy theories on the left (saying it’s) fake, staged. That was quite surprising,” he said.
Ware explained that while it is evident that actions on the security side went “catastrophically wrong,” many people will refuse to accept that. They believe that when something goes this wrong, there must be an explanation, some nefarious force at play. According to Ware, assassinations (and attempts) are particularly ripe for conspiracy theories.
And while law enforcement officials are trying to determine the motive behind the 20-year-old rooftop shooting, his reason remains unknown, which Ware warns may fuel even more conspiracies.
Misidentification of shooter
Many of these conspiracies quickly spread on social media, particularly on X, which has become the front line for these types of theories due to the absence of moderation, Ware said.
“These platforms are really built for these moments in terms of being able to create and inspire very fast-paced conversations based on no moderation. And so they amplify conspiracy theories. They provide a forum for disinformation.”
For example, when the shooting first occurred and the gunman had not yet been named, many people quickly turned to X to fill in the blanks.
Some blamed the shooting on Antifa, leading to “Antifa” becoming a top trending topic on X, fuelled by social media posts that misidentified the gunman responsible for Saturday’s shooting.
False posts surfaced online, saying that the shooter had been identified as an Italian football commentator named Marco Violi. Law enforcement had not publicly identified the shooter or released any information about his background as of Saturday evening.
This false information spread rapidly on X and other social media outlets such as Meta’s Threads, explained Kawser Ahmed, a political science adjunct professor at the University of Winnipeg.
“In the beginning, when the FBI didn’t release the name of the shooter … somebody grabbed this photo and said that this is the guy suspected, and he was bombarded with all this information, and he was scared, he feared for his life,” he said.
“And then he said, ‘Look, I have done nothing and all these things.’ But who cares? His reputation has been damaged, these have real-time implications and somebody’s identity will be totally damaged.”
Ahmed points to this being the consequence of people believing and sharing unverified information they see on the internet — it spreads dangerous misinformation that can ruin lives.
Although misinformation can spread on these platforms, companies like Meta state that while they value freedom of speech, they will remove misinformation from posts when it has the potential to cause imminent harm, interfere with voter turnout, or involve manipulated videos.
Global News reached out to Meta for comment about misinformation following Saturday’s event but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
After the shooting, some Republicans blamed Biden for the shooting, arguing that sustained criticism of Trump as a threat to democracy created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”
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Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia posted on X on Saturday, claiming that Biden sent the orders for the attempted assassination. He then followed up by stating Biden should be charged with “inciting an assassination.”
On Monday, Biden told NBC News in an interview that it was a “mistake” to say he wanted to put a “bull’s-eye” on Trump.
Ware believes that the choice of words was poor.
“It’s an unfortunate comment. It’s unfortunately timed,” Ware said. “(But) we have no evidence that this was a far-left extremist. So even if you did want to pin the rhetoric to the Democratic Party or the Biden campaign as being the cause of this act of violence, we have no evidence that this person was driven by those ideologies.”
Because there is no known motive behind the shooting, he said, people are simplifying this complex and frightening incident in a way that appeals to their innate desire for safety and comfort.
“When things come up and don’t have an easy explanation, that’s when people get very uncomfortable. And that’s the case here. That’s why those conspiracy theories have emerged,” he said.
On the other hand, in contrast to blaming Biden, some social media users claimed Trump and his team were behind the shooting, suggesting it looked “staged.”
“It looks very staged… Nobody in the crowd is running or panicking. Nobody in the crowd heard an actual gun. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust him,” read a post on X that received millions of views.
The post has since been labelled with a note on X pointing out the shooting was real.
Others also posted that the viral image of Trump, pumping his fist on stage while covered in blood with the U.S. flag in the background, suggests the event was staged.
A post urging users to “raise your hand and repost if you think this was staged!” has received 65,000 likes and 1.8 million views as of Monday. Another post on X, which has more than 12 million views, said, “Why would you open yourself up to more potential harm after thinking you were almost assassinated and yelling, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’”
Like the Biden theory, there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate claims that the shooting was staged. Trump was visibly injured and a spectator was killed and another was injured during the incident.
Ware said this theory is an insult to those who were harmed and killed during the event.
“It’s just unacceptable for that kind of information to spread when people really, really are suffering at this moment,” he said.
He said he is always amazed by conspiracy theories that assume a group of people with perfect counterintelligence capabilities orchestrated the event. For such a staged assassination attempt, he points out, people would need to be involved, from those sourcing fake blood to the Secret Service organizing a fake evacuation, and even audience members faking their shock.
Ware also finds it incredible that people believe such an operation could be executed flawlessly without any leaks or warning signs.
“But that doesn’t seem to stop people from believing it,” Ware added. “I think it comes from polarization. It comes from division. It comes from people who are so wrapped up in their group — in this case, their hatred of the president — that they can’t also accept that something horrible has happened to him.”
Secret Service intentionally failed to protect Trump
Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform after the shooting, falsely suggesting that the Secret Service may have deliberately failed to stop the incident.
“Extreme incompetence or it was deliberate. Either way, the SS leadership must resign,” he posted Saturday.
On Sunday, the Secret Service pushed back on claims circulating on social media that Trump’s campaign had asked for greater security before Saturday’s rally and was told no.
“This is absolutely false,” agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi wrote Sunday on X. “In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”
“There are conspiracy theories about the Secret Service in this incident because whatever happened is a catastrophic failure,” Ware explained. “It almost boggles the imagination that this could even get anywhere close to happening.”
He said a far more likely scenario is that there was a breakdown in communication between the Secret Service and local law enforcement regarding who was responsible for protecting the building. He noted that the incident was clearly a spectacular failure, and he isn’t surprised that people are rejecting this explanation and instead creating their own, often dangerous, theories.
Ware also criticized Musk and his platform, saying they are significant contributors to the spread of conspiracy theories.
“They are they are creating a wildfire of conspiracy theories that are going to make unity and bipartisanship and a call for peace far more difficult,” he said.
‘They want to feel like detectives’
When it comes to conspiracy theories, Ahmed said, they don’t need evidence to thrive. Even in the face of contradictory evidence or a complete lack of it, these theories take on a life of their own.
“And whatever we discuss in X or Reddit or Threads or WhatsApp, all these create echo chambers,” he said. “These social media platforms make misinformation spread and is also very dangerous nowadays as it will have real-time consequences.”
Ware believes that one of the reasons people fall for conspiracy theories, whether related to Saturday’s attempted assassination or the QAnon theories from a few years back, is that they provide a sense of excitement.
“There’s a desire to be part of a group that’s solving a mystery and people fall for conspiracy theories because they want to, because they want to be part of these groups. They want to feel like detectives. They want to feel like they’re connecting the dots on some grand conspiracy,” he explained.
Factual content does exist, Ware emphasized, but people need digital literacy to navigate online with the right tools to separate fact from fiction.
Ware warned that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” To avoid falling for misinformation, people should educate themselves on identifying reliable sources and always treat every source with skepticism. He emphasized the importance of being prepared to do additional reading to verify information.
Regarding whether Saturday’s events will fuel more misinformation in the 2024 U.S. election, he said, “The question that historians will eventually answer is whether what happened on Saturday marks the end of political violence in this election cycle or just the middle.”
“I think a lot of that will depend on the motive and ideology of the gunman,” he added.
