America and guns have a complicated relationship.

I’d call it abusive, because despite continually taking a beating they just cannot walk out that door and leave those weapons behind.

By now I’m sure you have seen the truly harrowing footage from that fateful day last week, when 17 innocent people lost their lives to another gun-wielding madman.

The reaction of the kids from Stoneman Douglas High School, and other schools right around the country, has been inspirational. They’ve taken to the streets in an effort to force Congress to enact stricter gun control measures, and you know what happens when you try and take guns from ‘Mericans.

They go batshit crazy, that’s what. We’ve seen Obama’s portrait being accused of containing elements of paedophilia, there was that #FollowTheWhiteRabbit thing from late last year, and now we have the kids from the Florida high school being subject to some ridiculous accusations.

Quartz with a summary:

Fake-news hawkers have been disseminating videos and posts claiming that David Hogg, one of the students who has been speaking to the media, is a “crisis actor.” This draws on the longstanding online conspiracy theory that people are hired to show up where tragedy strikes. By peddling such falsehoods, the posters are trying to undermine the calls for gun control from students.

The Facebook, Instagram and YouTube posts spread instantly, reaching hundreds of thousands of people, much like they did during the Las Vegas shooting last year.

Here’s an illustration of just how fast this kind of deception goes viral:

This is how absurd, gaslighting “crisis actor” theories go viral.

One @facebook post from this person has 111,000+ shares. Another has 23,000.

This is one person, two posts.

Imagine the millions and millions of people crackpot theories like this are reaching and influencing. pic.twitter.com/VU7cKCJhXq

— Micah Grimes (@MicahGrimes) February 20, 2018

This video has more than five million views at the time of writing, and all it shows is that Hogg has been interviewed in another state before.

UPDATE: IT HAS NOW BEEN REMOVED FROM FACEBOOK…

What that video did say was that Hogg was interviewed in another TV segment from last year, and thus he must somehow be a paid actor who travels around the country popping up when it suits a certain agenda.

Umm, he is a student at the school. It’s pretty easy to verify that. You know, like in the yearbook the school published last year:

There’s a photo going around claiming David Hogg did not attend Douglas, but a school in California. Here’s a video to debunk that: pic.twitter.com/hJsMNSdAsF

— Joey (@_Joey_Wong) February 21, 2018

This is what happens when you have a president that shouts ‘FAKE NEWS’ every time he doesn’t like something. Basic, verifiable facts are tossed aside and these ridiculous narratives come into play.

Oh, and guess who has liked two tweets pushing these ‘crisis actor’ theories – Donald Trump Jr, which means they show up on the Twitter feeds of many of his 2,6 million followers.

A video peddling this theory became the #1 trending video on YouTube, before the platform removed it, and Hogg even had to head to CNN to explain:

If you listen closely you can still hear Alex Jones shouting something about George Soros from his bunker.

Get a grip, America, because this is both so sad and so damn embarrassing.

[sources:quartz&huffpost]