YouTube features ‘act’ lie

Heinous slur vs. teen

The top trending video on YouTube Wednesday morning pushed a bogus conspiracy theory that one of the more outspoken survivors of the Florida school shooting was an actor — and that the massacre was faked.

The video was titled “Confrontation Between Lifeguard, Bodysurfer Caught on Camera in Redondo Beach Goes Viral,” and was viewed by nearly 200,000 people.

The clip came from a CBS2 broadcast, according to Motherboard, which first reported the story, and shows David Hogg (above), a Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS massacre survivor and gun-control activist, taking video of a beef between his body-surfing pal and a lifeguard at the California beach.

A caption on the video — which YouTube removed because it violated the site’s policy on bullying and harassment — read, “DAVID HOGG THE ACTOR . . .”

YouTube said the video — which was uploaded Tuesday and taken down 22 hours later on Wednesday morning — appeared to be legit because the clip came from a CBS affiliate.

“As soon as we became aware of the video, we removed it from Trending and from YouTube for violating our policies. We are working to improve our systems moving forward,” YouTube said in a statement.

Wingnuts on the Web in recent days have charged that the Feb. 14 shooting, which left 14 students and three staffers dead, was staged and that the activism that followed was paid for by liberal billionaire George Soros.

“The well ORGANIZED effort by Florida school students demanding gun control has GEORGE SOROS’ FINGERPRINTS all over it,” tweeted former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a prominent supporter of President Trump.

Hogg, 17, replied on CNN, “I’m not a crisis actor. I’m someone who had to witness this and live through this.”

Broward County School Superintendent Robert Runcie said of Hogg and other young activists, “These are absolutely students at Stoneman Douglas.”