Hours after the Texas school massacre that killed 10 sick hoaxers took to the Internet to spread lies suggesting the deaths were faked, and even posted doctored images showing the shooter in a 'Hillary 2016' hat.
Several trolls sought to discredit crying child survivors by suggesting they were 'crisis actors', who were reading accounts of seeing their friends being shot and killed from a script.
Some posts were quickly flagged and removed by Facebook and Twitter, but many remain online as Santa Fe High School continues to mourn the eight students and two teachers who died at the hands of 17-year-old gunman Dimitrios Pagourtzis.
Disinformation analyst Chris Sampson told the Washington Post that the first fake Facebook profile of the shooter emerged just 20 minutes after his name was made public.
'It seemed this time like they were more ready for this,' he said. 'Like someone just couldn't wait to do it.'
Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists flocked to online chat rooms such as 4chan to post disinformation suggesting the shooting was a hoax.
One 4chan post suggested the shooting could not possibly have happened at 8.30am, as reported, because lessons only started at 9.15am. In fact, the day starts at 7.15am, as shown on the Santa Fe High School website.
Another 4chan post, uncovered by Daily Dot, used a tenuous tie to Senator Rand Paul to suggest the massacre was faked by the political establishment.
'Rand Paul's nephew was the principal of Santa Fe HS up til a couple months ago. I smell bulls***,' the poster stated, without elaborating any further.
One 4chan users claimed the lack of videos of students fleeing the shooting suggested it had somehow been fabricated.
On Twitter, meanwhile, trolls responded to videos of high school students giving tearful interviews about the attack to spread the sick theory that they were 'crisis actors'.
Footage of Santa Fe student Paige Curry quickly drew offensive comments of this nature, with one user commenting, 'She's obviously reading from a script.'
The term was thrust into the public eye after the Parkland shooting, when survivors turned activists David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez were accused of being paid actors for the gun control lobby.
These theories often reach a wide audience, with one crisis actor video after Parkland rocketing to the top of YouTube's 'Trending' list.
Hoaxes intending to score political points also emerged after last year's shooting in Las Vegas, with some suggesting gunman Stephen Paddock was a far-left Antifa activist.
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://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5748125/Online-hoaxers-post-fake-images-Texas-high-school-shooter-Hillary-2016-hat.html