How Minnesota shooting conspiracy theories hijacked social media

The suspect’s name leaked shortly before 12 p.m. Minnesota time Saturday, giving amateur sleuths and conspiracy theorists additional fodder. Searching his name, some influencers seized upon a connection between Boelter and state government: In 2016, a previous Minnesota governor had appointed Boelter to a state advisory board about workforce development, and Walz had later reappointed him to the same board. But the connection was thin, according to Minnesota-based fact-checkers: The board has about 60 members, many of whom aren’t politically connected and would have no meaningful access to the governor, The Minnesota Star reported. There are more than 130 such advisory councils in the state’s government, the newspaper added.

Some people assumed that the advisory board seat was of great significance, using it as a basis to refer to Boelter as an “associate” of Walz.

At 12:02 p.m. CT, Mike Cernovich, a far-right agitator, posted a smear of Walz, the former vice presidential candidate, in the form of a question asking whether he had had a role in the death of a “political rival.” His post had 1.3 million views as of Monday. In a direct message on X, Cernovich defended his post to NBC News, writing: “I didn’t accuse him of anything. I asked a question.”

At 12:19 p.m., Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, posted on X about the shootings that “the extreme left” had become “terrifying.” Moreno’s office did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Musk posted about the shootings at 1:11 p.m., writing, “The far left is murderously violent.” His post had more than 52 million views as of Monday. Musk did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted several times about the shooting over the weekend, including three posts in which he blamed it on “Marxism” and one in which he tried to tie it to Walz. Lee’s posts sparked a furious response from Democrats, who said he was making jokes about murder, and Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., said Monday that she personally confronted Lee about his “cruel” posts. Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, who is from Minnesota, expressed fury at the rumors that spread mostly unchecked on social media.

“The pain that families, loved ones, and community members including myself are experiencing following the brutal attacks on our leaders — and friends — in Minnesota has only been compounded by the rampant disinformation campaign pushed by the far-right and uplifted by cynical politicians who prefer to weaponize a tragedy through shameful lies than call for unity and compassion,” Martin said in a statement.

“This disgusting rhetoric plays no small part in how we have reached this dangerous political moment in our country, and instead of speaking truth, we have prominent far-right leaders and elected officials playing with matches around the tinderbox,” he said.

Social media platforms have birthed viral rumors for more than a decade, but in recent years some online platforms have shifted radically away from content moderation and fact-checking while monetarily incentivizing viral posting. After Musk bought Twitter, which he renamed X, the service reinstated many previously banned users, stopped enforcing some rules about hateful content and began sharing revenue with users if they get engagement. This year, Instagram and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, stopped fact-checking in the United States. Meta is rolling out a crowdsourced “community notes” system, like a system on X in which users submit their own addenda to other users’ posts, which other users then vote on. Use of the system on X has plummeted since the beginning of this year, according to an NBC News analysis. X didn’t respond to a request for comment on the conspiracy theories on its app.

Now, the apps are fertile ground for hoaxes and unconfirmed accusations to spread, experts said.

“The design of social media platforms facilitates and even incentivizes this kind of rumoring and political point-scoring in the wake of crisis events,” Kate Starbird, a professor and co-founder at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, said in an email.

“Some of the most prominent accounts on X gained their audiences by strategically posting breaking news content with a political angle for clicks and follows,” Starbird said.

Even though federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Boelter, Republicans continued to spread the seemingly false narrative Monday.

Donald Trump Jr. told an interviewer with NewsNation that the Minnesota suspect “seems to be a leftist.” When the interviewer, Connell McShane, said, “He voted for your dad,” Trump didn’t budge, responding, “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Experts said conspiracy theories like the ones about Minnesota serve two aims: to make the political opposition appear evil and to pre-empt claims about extremism on your own side.

“These types of conspiracy theories or disinformation campaigns — they serve political interests,” said Jeffrey Blevins, a professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati.

“Instead of, ‘Look how radicalized my side of the aisle has become’ — oh, no, ‘it’s their side of the aisle that is radicalized, and we don’t have to deal with this now. It’s their fault,’” he said.

Nathan Walter, an associate professor of communications studies at Northwestern University, said online rumors are especially successful if they’re established early in the news cycle, as appeared to happen in Minnesota’s news vacuum.

“There’s this rush to create the first narrative, and this is really crucial if you want to spread misinformation. And it’s not very difficult, because it will always take more time for the real information to come out,” he said.

“Once the narrative takes hold, it’s very, very difficult to debunk,” he said.