Thread by @BobSaietta

If you're seeing some lunacy about a person of interest who was detained re: Waukesha, here's a brief window into how the right-wing disinfo machine works. It starts with Andy Ngo, of course. First, another reporter—not Andy—does the actual work of finding the POI's record. 1/x

Ngo then digs up a FB page allegedly belonging to the POI and posts some screenshots. But not before adding his own editorial slant, which at best could be described as inflammatory (if not outright false) and designed to get the attention of the online right. 2/x

On FB, the POI allegedly posted some antisemitic dreck, a cartoon about police brutality, and a photo of a mural of George Floyd. The latter two were enough for Ngo to say he'd posted "in support of BLM causes." Nowhere did he find anything directly linking the POI to BLM 3/x

There's no posts with a BLM hashtag (though Ngo added one in his tweet), or images of him attending/supporting BLM protesters, at least not that Ngo has found to date. For his audience, it doesn't matter. They've linked the POI to BLM. But take a look at the last sentence. 4/x:

That seems quite damning! What Ngo doesn't say is that the FB post was from a cop (who was later fired) and bragged about being able to get away w/running over protesters b/c of the privileges afforded members of law enforcement Not the same thing! 5/x twincities.com/2016/02/17/st-…

Naturally, Tim Pool made a video. The headline is "Police Refuse To Rule Out Terror In Waukesha Attack, Person Of Interest Detained Is BLM Supoorter" [sic]

Pool's source for this is Ngo's tweets. He says though it hasn't been proven that the POI is a member of BLM... 6/x

... clearly the POI has "ties to Black Lives Matter." (To date, this is false) Doesn't matter to Pool, who then speculates that since the cops haven't ruled out terrrorism this could be a "revenge attack" for the Rittenhouse verdict. The video's received 54k views in 2 hrs. 7/x

By the time a motive (if any is learned) neither Ngo nor Pool will correct any of their inflammatory or outright false reporting. They'll have moved on to the next target. Some percentage of their audiences, though, will forever remain convinced BLM targeted parade-goers. 8/8

To be clear: none of this excuses the alleged crime nor the person who perpetrated it, regardless of whether it's the POI or someone else. But connecting it long before any of the facts are known to BLM is how the far-right triggers and then monetizes their audience. 9/9

Here's my article on Ngo, Pool, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laura Loomer, and how random Facebook posts from the alleged perpetrator were framed by bad faith actors to blame Black Lives Matter for the tragedy in Waukesha. @thedailybeast thedailybeast.com/how-big-time-r…

yes, if there's one thing I'm known for it's uh trolling Andy by posting three tweets over the course of 2.5 years and [checks notes] defending antifa. Spot on. I guess my article on how Ngo selectively edits and crams together half-truths to serve a political agenda was wrong.