Trump’s assassination attempt conspiracies
Conspiracies about Trump assassination attempt receive over 215 million views on X
Conspiracies around the attempted assassination of Donald Trump have been viewed over 215 million times on X, with 95% of posts failing to carry a fact check.
About
Conspiracies about Donald Trump shooting are viewed 215 million times on X
Researchers used the “top” posts tab in X’s advanced search along with keywords such as “staged”, “false flag”, and “deep state” to manually collect a sample of 100 popular posts about Trump’s attempted assassination. The search was limited to posts with over ten thousand views since 13 July.
X’s algorithm curates “top” posts based on various factors including what keywords a post contains and how much engagement it receives, measured by reposts and replies.
Researchers also identified that only five out of 100 posts contained a Community Note that refuted false claims. The following examples highlight some of the conspiracies about the attempted assassination being circulated on X, without carrying a fact check:
- “Rumors are circulating that the Trump assassination attempt was an inside job after the release of this angle. Pay attention to what the secret service agent does seconds before!” (44.9m views)
- “This clip is what confirmed for me that this was orchestrated. An attempt to manufacture hysteria, and gain public sympathy/support. They playing dirty this election season.” (16m views)
- “That shooting so fucking staged dawg they clipped Trump’s ear with a damn rubber bullet now this ni**a gon act like he 50 Cent in 2003 omfg he just won the election” (10.7m views)
- “You’re telling me the Secret Service let a guy climb up on a roof with a rifle only 150 yards from Trump? Inside job.” (7.3m views)
- “Trump got shot and then got up and did this Maybe i been watching wrestling too long but this smells like a work brother 💀” (1.1m views)
Researchers identified 85 posts about the attempt being “staged” with a combined total of over 122 million views. Only three of these posts had an attached Community Note refuting the claims.
Posts containing antisemitic conspiracy receive over 8.8m views
Five posts with over 8.8 million views falsely promoted Jewish involvement in the assassination attempt by alleging that a secret service sniper present at the time was wearing a red string on their wrist associated with Kabbalah.
The posts alleged or implied that the sniper intentionally put Trump in danger by not shooting back fast enough. One post accused the sniper of being a MOSSAD agent.
Examples of such posts include:
- “One of the snipers who hesitated to shoot the assassin targeting Donald Trump can be seen wearing a red Kabbalah string on his hand.” (225,000 views)
- “MOSSAD Agent wearing a Kabbalah bracelet..🇮🇱” (537,000 views)
- “Okay this is weird. This close up of the counter sniper shows something else. He clearly already had the sniper in his sights. For whatever reason, they waited for him to take the shot before taking him down. Also what’s with the red Kabbalah string on his hand?” (3.4m views)
Imran Ahmed, CEO, Center for Countering Digital Hate stated;
When a business model monetizes controversy then amplification of extreme content is the inevitable result. In the marketplace of disinformation -which is effectively what a lot of social media platforms have now been reduced to, a marketplace for lies – extreme content is your currency. The algorithms take the most outlandish content and amplify it exponentially until the entire digital world is flooded with conspiracism, disinformation and hate
In the disinformation war, lies are weapons. Thanks to the almost complete erosion of trust in the digital information ecosystem over the last decade, caused directly by the monetization of disinformation, there seems to be an extremely worrying trend developing where people seem to feel that they can only fight lies with more lies.
Propagandists’ end–goal has always been to try and achieve a state of paralysis where confusion reigns across the political spectrum and trust in the pillars of our democracy – our information ecosystem, our institutions, our democratic processes – is completely broken.
Already, at an early stage in the US electoral cycle, we can see flashing warning signs that social media in the weeks and months ahead will be increasingly chaotic and rife with disinformation. We now urgently need legislation to compel social media companies to change their business model, to enforce their own community standards to stop fanning the flames of the conspiracy theory wildfires raging on their platforms.
Notes
- Researchers searched the following keywords associated with conspiracies about the Trump shooting using X’s advanced search to manually collect a sample of 100 popular posts about Trump’s attempted assassination. The search was limited to posts with over 10,000 views since July 13.
“secret service”, “staged”, “deep state”, “trump bladed”, “kabbalah”, “false flag”, “paintball”, “wrestling”, “crisis actors”, “stagedbytrump”, “trump wwe”
- X’s algorithm curates “top” posts based on various factors including what keywords a post contains and how much engagement it receives, measured by reposts and replies.
Search result FAQs, X Help Center, X, accessed 15 July 2024, https://help.x.com/en/using-x/top-search-results-faqs
- Five posts with over 8.8 million views falsely promoted Jewish involvement in the assassination attempt by alleging that a secret service sniper present at the time was wearing a red string on their wrist associated with Kabbalah.
Trump Assassination Attempt Sparks Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories and Violent “Revenge” Rhetoric, ADL, 14 July 2024, https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/trump-assassination-attempt-sparks-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-and-violent
- Community Notes is a crowd-sourced fact-checking system run by X that allows users to add context to posts and refute disinformation.
About Community Notes on X, X, accessed 16 July 2024, https://help.x.com/en/using-x/community-notes
Example posts
- “Rumors are circulating that the Trump assassination attempt was an inside job after the release of this angle. Pay attention to what the secret service agent does seconds before!” (44.9m views)
Matt Wallace, X, 14 July 2024,
https://x.com/MattWallace888/status/1812381308561117231
- ” This clip is what confirmed for me that this was orchestrated. An attempt to manufacture hysteria, and gain public sympathy/support. They playing dirty this election season” (16m views)
theericklouis, X, 14 July 2024, https://x.com/theericklouis/status/1812260875375702092
- “That shooting so fucking staged dawg they clipped Trump’s ear with a damn rubber bullet now this ni**a gon act like he 50 Cent in 2003 omfg he just won the election” (10.7m views)
GothamCityGood, X, 13 July 2024, https://x.com/GothamCityGoon/status/1812254693604663592
- “You’re telling me the Secret Service let a guy climb up on a roof with a rifle only 150 yards from Trump? Inside job.” (7.3m views)
Hodgetwins, X, 14 July 2024, https://x.com/hodgetwins/status/1812287099929772339
- “Trump got shot and then got up and did this Maybe i been watching wrestling too long but this smells like a work brother 💀” (1.1m views)
JulianWks, X, 13 July 2024,
Example posts containing antisemitic conspiracies
- “One of the snipers who hesitated to shoot the assassin targeting Donald Trump can be seen wearing a red Kabbalah string on his hand.”
ShadowofEzra, X, 14 July 2024, https://x.com/ShadowofEzra/status/1812511064875053539
- “MOSSAD Agent wearing a Kabbalah bracelet..🇮🇱”
Resist_05, X, 14 July 2024, https://x.com/Resist_05/status/1812568247109390436
- “Okay this is weird. This close up of the counter sniper shows something else. He clearly already had the sniper in his sights. For whatever reason, they waited for him to take the shot before taking him down. Also what’s with the red Kabbalah string on his hand?”
cirnosad, X, 14 July 2024, https://x.com/cirnosad/status/1812354307712340076