June 3, 2020 News & Press Releases

ICYMI: Virginia GOP candidate for Governor caught spreading “terrifying” hoaxes about protests


by Democratic Party of Virginia

KEY POINTS:

Virginia state senator and gubernatorial candidate Amanda Chase on Sunday shared a series of screenshots purporting to show violent plots against white people...Both screenshots were bogus, one originating from a now-deleted account and another from a white supremacist organization.

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State Senator Chase, whose office did not immediately return a request for comment, shared the fake antifa tweet alongside the fake Black Lives Matter post. “Virginians, 2A Supporters, believers in Liberty and those with family and friends,” she wrote. “You ALL need to guard your families and homes tonight."

See below from the Daily Beast

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Daily Beast: The GOP Politician Spreading Terrifying BLM and Antifa Hoaxes

By Kelly Weil
June 3, 2020 

Amid surging national unrest over police violence, Virginia state senator and gubernatorial candidate Amanda Chase on Sunday shared a series of screenshots purporting to show violent plots against white people. 

The first image, which Chase shared on Facebook, showed a user named “Blacklivess Matter” claiming that “we will be assassinating white families until justice is served!” The second showed a Twitter account called “Antifa America” threatening to “move into the residential areas … the white hoods … and take what’s ours.”

Both screenshots were bogus, one originating from a now-deleted account and another from a white supremacist organization. Nevertheless, Chase’s post, which shared the screenshots and implied readers should take up arms against the spectral threat, was still live on Tuesday. 

Though Chase appeared to be the only elected official of any prominence sharing the Black Lives Matter hoax, her post joined a flurry of digital disinformation surrounding protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. While social media broadcast Floyd’s killing worldwide, a series of bad actors have used it to sow division in a country already on edge.

Black Lives Matter is a racial justice campaign with some official chapters throughout the U.S. and Canada. What it is not, however, is a Facebook account called “Blacklivess Matter” that threatens random executions. Nevertheless, in the final days of May, the account posted in at least three pages for communities outside Houston, Texas.

“WE WILL BE ASSASSINATING WHITE FAMILIES UNTILL [sic] JUSTICE IS SERVED!!!” the posts read. “WE WILL SET UP IN WHITE NEIGHBORHOODS AND CITIES. ITS TIME TO TAKE ACTION!!!!! ALL WHITE PEOPLE MUST PAY FOR THEIR SINS. THEY ARE EVIL AND JEALOUS HUMAN BEINGS. LETS SEE YOU MOURN OVER YOUR UNCOOKED DISEASE HAVING FAMILIES FOR ONCE. WHITE BABIES, OLD WHITE PEOPLE, LAWYERS, POLICE, ETC!! P.S. THERE ARE OVER 100 OF US THE MISSION WILL BE DONE!!!!”

The account looked like an obvious hoax, misspelling the name “Black Lives Matter” and leaving typo-laden screeds with no profile picture. It soon disappeared from Facebook, which has rules barring inauthentic activity. But denizens of the right-wing internet took screenshots of the threat and shared it across Facebook, where some users appeared to take it very seriously.  Facebook did not return a request for comment on the account.

Read the full article here

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