Within a couple hours of Wednesday’s shooting at Westgate Entertainment District in Glendale, a college professor from St. Louis was on social media debunking claims about the shooter.

“Already the fakes are out about the Arizona shooting,” Julie Smith, a media literacy professor at Webster University, posted on Twitter.

She proceeded, in less than 2 minutes, to debunk a tweet that alleged to name a second shooter. Her hope is that others will read such posts with an equally skeptical eye.

‘A lot of this is on us’

“Breaking news brings out the fakers and the photoshoppers,” Smith said. “A lot of this is on us. We have to make sure we don’t share false information, that we double check it.”

While some posts incorrectly naming or describing shooters in these instances are intended to spread disinformation, others may be reposted by individuals who don’t check their sources or out of ignorance of the facts.

And some posters will create or perpetuate a fake to achieve their own purposes — maybe to drive traffic to their own web sites, or to advance their own political aims.

Tips to gauge credibility

Smith uploaded a video to Youtube Wednesday night titled “Debunking Arizona shooting Tweet.”

In the video, Smith analyzes a tweet that alleged to name a second shooting suspect and his political ties. 

Smith called attention to a few things:

• typos in the tweet.
• the user’s request for others to “please retweet.”
• his listed location in Nigeria.
• and his low follower count. 

“He’s not credible in my opinion,” she said. 

Smith told The Arizona Republic that as a breaking news story is evolving, people often try to take advantage of a “gap in knowledge” to drive traffic to their pages.

Smith said that misinformation and disinformation has become easy to spread, particularly when it affirms what someone already feels, making them less likely to check it for authenticity.  

“The biggest issue is that people believe what they want to believe rather than actual facts,” she said.

When absorbing information in the wake of a breaking news situation, Smith encourages people to:

• Slow down and investigate further, particularly when a post immediately gives them a strong emotional response.
• Remain skeptical if the information is coming from only one person, if the information has grammatical errors or if the user is explicitly asking for retweets to spread the information.
• If a photo is used, run a reverse image search through Google, which can bring up related images posted elsewhere on the internet.

Users of the Chrome browser can right-click on an image and click “Search Google for image” to turn up more results. In other browsers, they can use https://tineye.com.

Local man gets it wrong

An Ahwatukee man found himself backtracking in a separate instance of spreading false information after the shooting in Glendale. 

Scott Weinberg, who is running for the Kyrene School District Governing Board, identified an individual with the same name as the suspect on Twitter. 

He later deleted the tweet, but screenshots posted online show him describing the wrongly accused, supposed shooter as “left-wing” and a member of the LGBTQ community. 

“Since the #AZMedia refuses to do their job, (as usual) here is your Westgate shooter,” read Weinberg’s deleted post, which included a photo. “I wonder how long until this article gets dumped down the memory hole.”

Weinberg posted that he deleted the tweet after additional research led him to question the accuracy. After others reached out, debunking the claim,Weinberg apologized.

“I apologize for my mistake,” Weinberg wrote. “I should have properly vetted the information before tweeting it. My intent was (to) criticize the #AZMedia and not to cause any harm.” 

Instances of people misidentifying criminals in high-profile cases are not new for Arizona. 

In 2018, a string of murders in Scottsdale led to several rumors about who the shooter was, culminating in one popular Twitter personality falsely identifying a local attorney as the suspect.

In some instances, naming the wrong person has had consequences, like legal action.

Have a tip out of Scottsdale? Reach the reporter Lorraine Longhi at [email protected] or 480-243-4086. Follow her on Twitter @lolonghi.

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