Alt-right Twitter perpetuated a fake story from that gruesome Facebook Live. Image: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, FileThe Black Lives Matter movement has been dragged into a heinous Facebook Live video despite no connection to the incident. On Tuesday, Chicago police arrested three 18-year-olds and a 24-year-old, including the woman who allegedly filmed and posted a 30-minute video on her Facebook account showing the kidnapping and torturing of a white man with an intellectual disability. On Thursday, the group was charged with a hate crime for the attack. With the video online and accessible for some time before Facebook removed it, the clip quickly turned into fodder for white supremacists, alt-right trolls, and racists. Some of the earlier tweets Wednesday started to link the attack to Black Lives Matter. Chicago police have already debunked any connection between the activist group and kidnappers, despite prominent alt-right social media users pushing the narrative. "And we cannot respond to hate with hate. On the main Black Lives Matter Facebook account, the group posted on Thursday: "We condemn this behavior," reiterating the message behind the movement as "less violence, not more." This isn't the first time Black Lives Matter has had to deal with the efforts of those opposing it to create a false narrative connecting them to violence.
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A Facebook Live video of four young people beating a man, called “sickening” by police, has become the focus of a kidnapping case. So why’s the Black Lives Matter movement involved?
It’s not, of course. But that didn’t stop a racist hashtag suggesting as much from trending.
On Tuesday, Chicago police arrested three 18-year-olds and a 24-year-old, including the woman who allegedly filmed and posted a 30-minute video on her Facebook account showing the kidnapping and torturing of a white man with an intellectual disability. The four accused attackers are black. On Thursday, the group was charged with a hate crime for the attack.
In the video, the alleged kidnappers can be heard shouting expletives about white people and Donald Trump, as the victim is tied up and beaten.
With the video online and accessible for some time before Facebook removed it, the clip quickly turned into fodder for white supremacists, alt-right trolls, and racists. Tweets about so-called reverse racism and demands to charge the group with a hate crime came swiftly, and proliferated as such. By Wednesday night, the misleading hashtag #BLMKidnapping—which includes the acronym for the Black Lives Matter movement—was picking up steam.
The hashtag incorrectly implied that the kidnappers…
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