Twitter Suspends ‘Suspicious, Misleading’ Account That Made Covington Hoax Go Viral

Twitter has suspended a “suspicious” and “misleading” account which made the Covington Catholic High School hate hoax video go viral.

According to the Hill, an account named @2020fight made the video, which led to the widespread harassment of the high school teenagers involved, go viral.

However, the account reportedly has a number of inconsistencies.

“@2020fight claims to belong to a California schoolteacher. However its profile photo is of a blogger based in Brazil,” the Hill reported, citing Twitter’s rules against “fake and misleading accounts.”

In a statement to the Hill, a Twitter spokesman claimed, “Deliberate attempts to manipulate the public conversation on Twitter by using misleading account information is a violation of the Twitter Rules.”

CNN Business also reported that “Molly McKew, an information warfare researcher who saw the tweet and shared it herself on Saturday, said she later realized that a network of anonymous accounts were working to amplify the video,” from the already “suspicious” account.

“This is the new landscape: where bad actors monitor us and appropriate content that fits their needs. They know how to get it where they need to go so it amplifies naturally,” declared McKew. “And at this point, we are all conditioned to react and engage or deny in specific ways. And we all did.”

In the viral video, the Catholic school kids were seen staring at Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, who went up to the teenagers at the March For Life event and played his drum inches from one student’s face.

As reported by Breitbart News’ Joshua Caplan, “Initial video of a confrontation between Covington Catholic High School junior Nick Sandmann and Native American activist Nathan Phillips created a firestorm on social media, with media pundits from across the political spectrum accusing the student of disrespecting the man. Sandmann is seen grinning in a red Make America Great Again hat while simply standing in front of Phillips, an elder with the Omaha tribe. Several students could be seen laughing and making hand gestures believed to be mocking Phillips.”

“Yet, subsequent videos show that the students were not only approached by Philips first, but were verbally accosted by a religious group, Black Hebrew Israelites, which have been labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group,” Caplan explained.

The teens received a number of death threats and violent messages from users online, including celebrities and journalists, some of which called on others to injure the children.

Actress Kathy Griffin called on her followers to dox the students, while Hollywood producer Jack Morrissey posted a picture of the children being murdered and shredded in a wood chipper.

Classes at their Catholic high school have since been canceled Tuesday over safety concerns.