Last night there was a highly upvoted, highly-trafficked post on r/the_donald declaring that the Quebec shooter (a far-right white nationalist) was definitely a Muslim because no information had been announced yet which meant the media was colluding to cover for a Muslim. Some select (upvoted) comments:
There are rumors of one week old refugees committing this act of terrorism. Wake the fuck up people.
“the media will not report on violent incidents till they ascertain that the perpetrators were not muslim”
Takes time to patch up all the cracks in The Narrative™
> Also to poorly photoshop their picture so they appear whiter.
I checked back there this morning to see if the news that the shooter was actually a white rightist Canadian had gotten any discussion. It hadn’t, of course - the front page is all people declaring they’re proudly boycotting Starbucks, which recently said they will hire refugees.
I bet there are a lot of people who read r/the_donald and have a vague impression that refugees committed six murders in Canada last night, a vague impression which will stack with other similarly unverified vague impressions and leave them convinced there’s an epidemic of refugee violence. I have no idea what to do about that, and it terrifies me.
This is partially a side effect of the media blowing their own credibility, and partially a side effect of conservatives setting up their own bubble. I’m not even a conservative and I don’t really know who to trust these days.
It’s hardly unique to the Left though, since social conservatives burned through an unbelievable amount of social capital fighting against gays lately.