This article contains language and content that may be distressing.
This week the world witnessed yet another mass shooting in the United States.
And in the aftermath of the devastating tragedy, amid the sending of heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, and impassioned pleas for greater gun control, other messages, sadly familiar after mass shootings, emerged.
Viral myths. Misinformation. Conspiracy theories. Most are about the identity and motive of the shooter.
Another now-common claim, repeated after Tuesday's massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Texas by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, is that the entire shooting was staged, a false flag to assert gun reform in the same week the state will host the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting.
It's something that has experts worried because of the increased speed these theories now spread, and their potential to stifle discussion around gun control.
Texas authorities were still seeking a possible motive for the massacre on Thursday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has avoided the issue of whether tougher gun laws are needed, instead saying it's a case of improving mental health care.
'Illegal immigrants', transgender people wrongly blamed for massacre
Within hours of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, internet users shared baseless claims about what sparked the attack from Ramos, who had no criminal record and no known mental health history.
Misinformation on Reddit, Twitter, and forum website 4CHAN claimed the shooter was an illegal immigrant, transgender, or both.
“Did he cross the border illegally?” Code of Vets, a veterans organisation said on Twitter. “Our nation has a serious national security crisis evolving.”
Even when the group reshared the tweet stating “the shooter has been confirmed to be a citizen,” the account also added: “Mental health must be addressed. Our border must be secured.”
The shooter, who was Hispanic, was from a school district where 91 per cent of students were also Hispanic, according to the Texas Education Agency which tracks enrolments. The district is just 120 kilometres from the Mexican border.
On Wednesday, just a day after the shooting, the Trans Safety Network, a UK-based research group that monitors threats against the transgender community, said that it had found photos of three transgender people falsely identified as the gunman.
They also confirmed all three wrongly named as the shooter, who had been killed at the scene, were alive.
“Within a few hours of news of this massacre being published, Trans Safety Network became aware of far-right and gender-critical Twitter users sharing false claims that the shooter was actually a trans woman,” the statement read.
“This morning (UK time) photos of at least two trans people were being claimed to be the shooter on the Alex Jones show live stream and continued to spread through social media.”
Conspiracy theorist and broadcaster Alex Jones of Infowars has lied for years that the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 children and six adults were shot dead, was a fake operation by gun control advocates. Many victims’ families had been harassed by his followers as a result, and last year, Mr Jones lost four defamation lawsuits brought forward by Sandy Hook victims' families.
Similarly, after the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida which claimed the lives of 14 students and three staff members, some accused distraught students of being "crisis actors," paid to push an "anti-gun" agenda. A similar claim was made this week, with some social media posts alleging parents at the scene were insufficiently emotional for the massacre to be real.
A now-deleted tweet from Republican congressman Paul Gosa was posted on 25 May, 2022.
The two fake stories were combined and amplified when Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar conflated the misinformation in a now-deleted tweet.
"It's a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos," Mr Gosar tweeted on Tuesday night.
'Stifling gun control conversations', 'moving from fringe to mainstream'
Dr Kaz Ross, an independent researcher of far-right extremism and conspiracy theories in Australia, told The Feed the shooting: “has been weaponized by commentators, as all mass shootings are”.
Payton Gendron, the teen accused of shooting 10 people dead at a Buffalo supermarket on 16 May in a racially-motivated attack, forced reflection on white supremacy and gun reform. Gendron had disseminated hundreds of pages of racist ramblings. However, this attack, Dr Ross said, has been harnessed by the far-right in the US to 'stifle' criticisms of gun laws and instead deflect blame to issues which conservative politicians do not align with.
“The first thing we hear, it went all over the internet, was that this was a trans person, they were mentally ill. That fits a very neat agenda that far-right conservatives are running in America ... about critical race theory, about “too woke” and the teachers and the school curriculum being corrupted," said Dr Ross.
"Conversations around gun control are being stifled, it goes back to their argument that it's people that kill people, not guns."
Dr Yotam Ophir, a professor of Communication and head of the Media Effects, Misinformation, and Extremism lab at the State University of New York at Buffalo said at times of social anxiety, people are attracted to conspiracies.
“Some seek comfort in conspiracies, preferring to believe that large-scale events are the result of large-scale plans - as opposed to often being arbitrary and meaningless,” he said in a statement.
“Others look for someone to blame. Historically these scapegoats are minorities – Jews, Blacks, Women, or LGBTQI+. Finally, some spread misinformation because they gain from it.”
He said though it has always been a trend around tragic events, the popularisation is worrying.
"What’s new and concerning to me these days is the rapid move of conspiracism from the fringe to mainstream politics and discourse," Dr Ophir said in a statement.
"This is particularly evident on the right side of the political map, where ludicrous theories once reserved to fringe characters and political outsiders are now becoming a staple on Fox News and among some Republican representatives, such as Margorie Taylor Green, and in the case of the Texas shooting, a congressman from Arizona."
Controversial Republican congresswoman Margorie Taylor Green once supported and promoted QAnon conspiracy theories.
"People often dismiss online misinformation as unimportant, but our studies continuously point to the worrisome fact that hate and misinformation don’t stay online," Dr Ophir told The Feed.
"They have very real and very painful consequences. Maybe Shakespeare put it best in Romeo and Juliet, saying that “these violent delights have violent ends”.
Dr Ross, who lives in Tasmania, said some people on Telegram still deny the 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania in which 35 people were killed and 23 others were wounded.
“They deny that the Port Arthur massacre was done by Martin Bryant and [say] that it was all false flag which was to get gun control, and that nobody really died," she said.
“And you know, that sort of thing just doesn't wash down here because everybody knows somebody who was either working there, working in the hospitals, in the police or grew up with Martin. Everyone has a connection down here.”
Readers seeking crisis support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged up to 25).
LGBTIQ+ Australians seeking support with mental health can contact QLife on 1800 184 527 or visit
also has a list of support services.
