Hollywood liberals who attack and bully children on social media are learning there are consequences to their behavior. Erik Abriss, a writer for Vulture.com and Digital company INE Entertainment, was fired after he took to social media on Saturday to wish death on Covington Catholic High School students who visited Washington, D.C. to protest abortion on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Famed Walt Disney Pictures producer Jack Morissey apologized Tuesday for tweeting a disturbing graphic envisioning putting the teenagers into a wood chipper.
The liberal meltdown started when a fake Twitter account posted a video from the students' anti-abortion protest that was edited to show the teenagers apparently mocking Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder who was banging a drum.
The fake Twitter account, @2020fight, which is now suspended, misrepresented the facts by stating the students were mocking and taunting Phillips.
News outlets described Phillips as a veteran of the Vietnam war. In fact, Phillips was a refrigeration mechanic in the Marines who went AWOL twice. He never left the United States. He has a reputation for being a professional protestor.
The liberal news media - always on the prowl for victim-blaming stories - spotted the video trending on Twitter, and without vetting the video, they reported it as an attack by white students on a Native American.
In reality, the students, who wore red MAGA hats, were verbally assaulted and called racist names by a group of Black Hebrew Israelites who stood just off camera.
A different video angle shows the students did not insult or mock Mr. Phillips. In fact, one student, Nick Sandmann, smiled as Phillips banged his drum in the boy's face.
'I had every right to stand there': #Covington Catholic student says he has nothing to apologize for https://t.co/zzV3thDrzI pic.twitter.com/8iJZ4iRVWN
— RT (@RT_com) January 23, 2019
In a classic example of a modern day lynch mob, journalists, politicians, and celebrities called for violence and death against the students.
Following the backlash, Nick told NBC's TODAY Show host Savannah Guthrie he wasn't being "disrespectful" to Phillips.
"As far as standing there, I had every right to do so," said Nick. "My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I’d like to talk to him.".
Nick added: "In hindsight, I wish we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing."
In a series of tweets Tuesday, President Trump said the students of Covington Catholic "have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be."
Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good - maybe even to bring people together. It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2019
After another video proved the teenagers did not mock Phillips, most of the journalists and celebrities who had reacted with violence on Twitter.com quietly deleted their tweets. Comedienne Kathy Griffin deleted her tweets that referred to the students as "Nazis."
Lawyers for the teens and their parents threatened to sue journalists who fed the online outrage by reporting facts that later turned out to be untrue.
Nick is reluctantly adjusting to his newfound fame. He was a guest on NBC's TODAY and NBC Nightly News on Monday.
President Trump invited "smiling Nick" and the other students to the White House today, Jan. 23.
Nick's smiling face and MAGA hat were turned into a meme that features the text, "I STAND WITH NICK."
Twitter suspended the fake account that started the entire fake news mess.
In a statement to The Hill, a Twitter spokesman said, "Deliberate attempts to manipulate the public conversation on Twitter by using misleading account information is a violation of the Twitter Rules."
Some observers say the #MAGAkids hoax video was just a test run by a troll farm ahead of the 2020 presidential elections. Spreading fake news worked to perfection during the 2016 presidential elections. This latest hoax shows that social media users are still easily influenced by fake news.
CNN Business reported that "Molly McKew, an information warfare researcher who saw the tweet and shared it herself on Saturday, said she later realized that a network of anonymous accounts were working to amplify the video," from the already "suspicious" account.
"This is the new landscape: where bad actors monitor us and appropriate content that fits their needs," said McKew. "They know how to get it where they need to go so it amplifies naturally. And at this point, we are all conditioned to react and engage or deny in specific ways. And we all did."
A senior news reporter attempted to explain why the news media as a whole displays a lack of journalistic standards on social media.
"Before you judge reporters too harshly, it's important to remember that these days the social media tail wags the mainstream dog," he said. "If you want your story to be well-placed... you have to generate page views - you have to incite social media. The way you do that is to reinforce the prejudices of your readers."
