The slow death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the Baltimore
bridge collapse
Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news. The
Baltimore bridge collapse shows those days are long gone.
The same conspiracy-theory-peddling personalities who spammed X with
posts claiming that Tuesday's Baltimore bridge collapse was a
deliberate attack have also called mass shootings "false flag" events
and denied basic facts about the Covid-19 pandemic. A Florida
Republican running for Congress blamed "DEI" for the bridge collapse
as racist comments about immigration and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott circulated among the far right. These comments echo Trump in 2019, who
called Baltimore a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess," and, in
2015, blamed President Obama for the unrest in the city.
As conspiracy theorists compete for attention in the wake of a
tragedy, others seek engagement through dubious expertise, juicy
speculation, or stolen video clips. The boundary between conspiracy
theory and engagement bait is permeable; unfounded and provoking posts
often outpace the trickle of verified information that follows any
sort of major breaking news event. Then, the conspiracy theories
become content, and a lot of people marvel and express outrage that
they exist. Then they kind of forget about the raging river of Bad
Internet until the next national tragedy.
https://www.vox.com/technology/24113765/twitter-x-misinformation-baltimore-bridge-collapse
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