Many of the accounts that were sharing his image falsely were from India, as right-wing influencers seized on the alleged origin of the shooter as proof of Pakistan’s terror connections, without fact-checking whether it was the correct man they were vilifying.
Akram said he had gone to the police to report the misinformation but they had just told him to disable all his social media accounts. He said he was also unable to reach X to get their assistance. Instead he resorted to making his own video which he posted to Facebook and Twitter, in a bid to clarify that he had been wrongly identified and called for the posts with his photograph to be reported and taken down.
The response of the police is grossly inadequate in this case. With the kind of hatred that results from the mass shooting, this man’s life is obviously in danger of some angry, upset person deciding to attack him for retribution and revenge. Disabling his own social media accounts does nothing to prevent this. The police should have contacted the social media companies with the authority of a government agency to have them deal with the issue promptly. Or they should have referred the issue to some other government agency empowered to act. It’s not adequate to simply age verify everyone but let such dangerous misinformation go unchecked.
Lmao, disable social media. And then he tries to enter the US next and is asked about why he doesn’t have social media. The world we live in is truly marvelous.
Also, there is no way to truly disable these accounts. Others likely can still tag him, send him hateful messages. The dude just doesn’t see it, is that really better?
Hot. Love this. Love the misinformation firehouse. So glad we’re all protecting children, addressing real problems.
Ironic it’s Indian right wing influencers. For right wing racist white westerners, they aren’t going to make much of a distinction between an Indian and a Pakistani.
