Some what misleading social media propaganda poster

Some what misleading social media propaganda poster

I did a rare login to Twitter and saw this item:

This was an assault by supporters of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and the victim of the assault was not a senior citizen but the campaign manager of his Democratic Party rival candidate. His smart phone was also allegedly stolen. Per news reports “armed men acting as security push(ed) the crowd back after a fight broke out”.

An accurate title would be “At a campaign speech being made by Democratic Party Congressional candidate Hank Gilbert supporters of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) (and Trump) assault the Gilbert campaign manager” Gilbert described the attackers as “Blue Lives Matter protesters”. Police were investigating and working to identify suspects. Per the news media photos and several social media videos, the assaulters did not have “semi-automatic weapons slung over their shoulders”; weapons are not visible in any of the videos of the assault. However, other photos show several armed men, with guns slung over their shoulders, on the periphery of the event, with media titles saying they were acting as “perimeter security”. One photo shows an armed man opposing the Gohmert/Trump supporters with a caption saying “armed men acting as security push the crowd back after a fight broke out” (photo #8).

An additional 25 photos are available here.

This might be rated in Snopes style as “Mostly True” or “Mixture”.

It is a right versus left conflict with the right doing the assaulting. However, the original was twisted into a story about a Biden supporting senior citizen being assaulted by armed Trump supporters “with semi automatic weapons over their shoulders”, which was not correct. The alterations seem intended to have increased the emotional appeal by reference to a “senior citizen” and turning in to a Biden versus Trump issue.

General rule: Never believe anything you see on social media.

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