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Jan 14, 2025 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
One prominent conspiracy theory focuses on rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was charged with sex trafficking in September. Some users are baselessly claiming that the wildfires were intentionally started to cover up alleged incriminating evidence in Combs’ trial — the conspiracy theories vary, but that’s the core of it.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
Months after the Trump campaign’s flagrant lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, went viral, right-wing media continue to fuel fear of Haitian migration. In Indiana, a small city was the focus of a misinformation-fueled migrant witch hunt led by right-wing media that emboldened hate groups and is now being used as a case study to justify anti-immigrant policies. Logansport is a rural city with a population of about 18,000 residents.
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Oct 22, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
TikTok’s race to become an Amazon competitor has created a dangerous, insufficiently regulated marketplace filled with black market pharmaceuticals and cosmetic injections. TikTok is facilitating and apparently profiting from the sale of these illicit injectables. Every item discussed in this report seemingly violates TikTok Shop’s own prohibited products policy, putting into question the company’s product approval process.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
TikTok users are asking Amazon’s Alexa unanswerable questions about the outcome of rapidly strengthening Hurricane Milton, which is forecast to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Alexa is providing users with inaccurate answers, sparking panic and conspiracy theories that have already garnered over a million views on TikTok.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
Hurricane Helene devastated southeastern states, killing at least 180 people with hundreds still missing. The “biblical devastation” to some of these areas, particularly in North Carolina, has prompted some TikTok users to spread unfounded conspiracy theories about the catastrophe that are reaching millions of users.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, lied that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, turbocharging right-ring bigotry and misinformation targeting the community. These baseless claims, as well as overt racism directed at Haitians, are proliferating on TikTok and garnering millions of views. Users on TikTok searching for details about Springfield, Ohio, and Haitian immigrants are being served blatant misinformation by the platform.
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Sep 11, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Jack Winstanley |Kayla R Gogarty |Payton Armstrong |Olivia Little |Noah Dowe
Right-wing and far-right media figures are circulating the false claim that Vice President Kamala Harris was wearing a secret earpiece during the debate, implying that she was being fed responses. The claim — which right-wing figures have lobbed at presidential candidates for decades — gained traction across social media, including on X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, where videos asserting that Harris was wearing a secret device earned at least 1.5 million views.
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Sep 6, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little |Madeline Peltz
About a week before Moms for Liberty’s 2023 summit, an Indiana chapter quoted Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. The chapter apologized, but co-founder Tiffany Justice doubled down at the summit, saying, “One of our moms in a newsletter quotes Hitler. I stand with that mom.” According to police records, co-founder Bridget Ziegler was “on prowl” with husband Christian Ziegler (who spoke at last year’s summit) to find women for a three-way sexual relationship.
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Aug 26, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
Right-wing media figure and now teen fiction author Glenn Beck is partnering with Moms for Liberty to place his new novel in public schools. Beck was an early supporter of Moms for Liberty, an anti-LGBTQ “parental rights” organization whose members have advocated for banning books across the country and harassing school officials, and his Blaze Media outlet even has a page on its website dedicated to promoting the group. Notably, Beck is set to speak at the group’s 2024 summit beginning this week.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
mediamatters.org | Olivia Little
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign isn’t using artificial intelligence to manipulate crowd photos of campaign events, but unchecked TikTok videos repeating the blatantly false conspiracy theory are racking up millions of views.
