Las Vegas attack: Hoaxes and fake news spread after deadliest mass shooting in US history

FBI agents confer in front of the Tropicana hotel-casino on October 2, 2017, after a mass shooting during a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada (REUTERS/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus)

The US has been hit by the worst mass shooting in its history. And already people are trying to twist the truth for their own ends.

A number of lies and false stories are circulating online, in the wake of the horrific and tragic attack. Some of them are mistakes, but many of them are attempts to use the event for other – sometimes strange – ends.

What is confirmed is that 64-year-old Stephen Paddock took a number of guns into his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay hotel and fired through the window onto a crowd at a country music concert. More information is likely to become clear in the coming days.

But even those details – as well as a range of other information – are being disputed by people who are spreading misinformation online.

1. Fake pictures

   As has become common after such attacks, a huge number of people went online just minutes after it happened to spread fake pictures. Some of those claimed to be the attacker, and others claimed to show people who had been caught up in the attack.

   For instance, a huge number of people shared photos of Sam Hyde, an Internet personality. That has now become a strange tradition after all such horrific events, with posts suggesting he is a known terrorist and that he had taken part in the attack.

   But a number of other false images were circulating online, including a number of other semi-famous people.

   The advice is the same as ever: do not share unconfirmed images of people caught up in the attack. The attacker has now been found, so sharing his picture is unnecessary; if people are missing, make sure that the images are legitimate, and it’s likely they probably won’t be.

   It’s not clear why people do this. It seems partly aimed at causing inconvenience for the people whose images are being shared, and partly simply to cause confusion in the wake of the event.

2. False identities

   As people attempted to identify the killer, and before he was named by police, people rushed to find some clue of who might responsible for the attack. But they found the wrong people.

   In particular, the name of Geary Danley spread quickly, with people suggesting he had been confirmed as the attacker. But that seemed to be a mistake as a result of the fact that police were looking for someone related to him.

   These weren’t all simply innocent mistakes or misunderstandings. For some people, the discovery that the attack might have been perpetuated by Mr Danley was connected to his political beliefs, and people argued that it could have been a left-wing, anti-Trump attack – but that is completely unsubstantiated.

3. A number of shootings, or a number of shooters

   In the immediate aftermath of the attack, a number of posted that there was either two attackers on the scene or that there were attacks ongoing in a number of locations. Neither are true.

   Such reports tend to spread in the chaos of an attack. Claims of a number of shooters may have come from the fact that it wasn’t initially clear where the shots were coming from; the multiple attacks appear partly to have been confusion, and partly misinformation being spread intentionally.

   Some people used that supposed fact as proof of the fact that the attack was a co-ordinated act of terror. But police have confirmed that Paddock not only acted alone but that the attack doesn’t yet appear to be linked to any such terror event.