Survivors under internet assault
Online trolls target students seeking stricter gun laws
One student was teased about being a “brown, bald lesbian.” Another was the target of conspiracy theorists who claimed he was an actor. When a group of teens posed for a photo, they were accused of lapping up attention from the news cameras and “partying like rock stars.”
Just days after watching their classmates die, survivors of the Florida school shooting came under a different kind of assault, this time from online trolls who threatened the students as they seek tighter gun laws.
In the face of such attacks, the students have been undeterred, confronting the trolls head-on in television interviews and on social media.
“They see us as a threat. And honestly, that’s kind of entertaining to me. And I love it because it means what we are doing is work- Hogg ing. We are changing the world,” student David Hogg told MSNBConWednesday at a rally outside the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee.
Some conservatives have suggested that the teens are being used as political pawns, but the most vicious of the trolls go beyond that, into personal attacks and baseless accusations.
Hogg was the subject of perhaps the most outlandish conspiracy to surface since the Feb. 14 attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people. He was accused of being an actor who was never at t he school.
The t heory gained momentum in part because Hogg was interviewed by a news reporter last year while on vacation in California. During the trip, he was a witness to a friend’s confrontation with a lifeguard. President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., liked a tweet linking to a story suggesting Hogg was not a survivor of the attack. But Hogg is no actor. He recorded a video of terrified students huddled Florida Rep. Sean Shaw leads students as they chant protest slogans Wednesday at the state Capitol in Tallahassee. Students are tackling gun laws after the Parkland massacre. in a darkened room on the day of the shooting. His classmates responded to the trolls with biting sarcasm.
Hogg “is smart, funny and diligent, but my favorite thing about him is undoubtedly that he’s actually a 26-year-old felon from California,” tweeted classmate Cameron Kasky.
Others latched on to Hogg’s comment that his dad previously worked for the FBI as a means to discredit him. The FBI has acknowledged that agents received a tip about suspect Nikolas Cruz but failed to investigate it.
The students who endured trolling also include Emma Gonzalez, whose who studies online harassshort haircut and skin color ment, said such internet drew derision, and Kasky, mobs are meant “to silence who complained on Twitter and to intimidate” and to about receiving death “shut down a social movethreats on Facebook. ment in its tracks.”
Critics also assailed the But Citron said the students for the photos that younger generation, who were taken with a reporter. are steeped in social media, Trolls said the teens were can be resilient. “laughing uproariously.” “My Twitter following
Hoax claims and online has tripled over the past vitriol have long plagued day,” Hogg told MSNBC. “I survivors of mass shootings think that’s in part because and families of the dead. But of these trolls. So for that, many of the Stoneman I’m honestly kind of thankDouglasful.”studentsfaceda new layer of scrutiny after University of Illinois at they pivoted from survivors Chicago communications to gun-control activists. professor Steve Jones said
University of Maryland conventional advice is not professor Danielle Citron, to engage with trolls. But he said he would not presume to tell the students what to do, especially after what they witnessed.
“They’ve been through one of the most horrible things imaginable and whatever they’re doing in response to it is itself an act of bravery,” said Jones, who studies online behavior.
Piero Guerra, a 16-yearold junior, who considered himself a gun-rights supporter before the shooting, said he can understand why some people are angry with the students’ efforts.
“But my main goal is that they see our perspective as well,” Guerra said. “It’s kind of hard to tell people to be respectful on the internet because it’s never going to happen.”
Lenny Pozner, whose 6year-old son died in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., has sought to debunk conspiracy theories claiming mass shootings were staged by the government as part of an anti-gun agenda. He is still harassed online.
Pozner said he’s now advocating for laws that would treat victims of mass shootings as a protected class “so that this kind of targeting would be considered hate speech and a crime.”
“But I’m glad people are not still deluding themselves with saying, ‘Just ignore the trolls and they’ll go away.’ Because they have not gone away,” Pozner said.