What we can VERIFY about a photo that goes viral after nearly every mass shooting in America
The ‘Sam Hyde shooter meme’ has been shared online after mass shootings for years. We VERIFY where it came from and why it spread after tragedies.
Since at least 2015, photos of comedian Sam Hyde have appeared online after various mass shootings across the country.
After a mass shooting at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, Calif., an image of Hyde holding an assault-style rifle appeared on message boards with false claims he was the attacker. Two years later, photos of Hyde were shared, along with more false claims that he was a shooter who attacked a church in Texas.
More recently, on March 27, a shooter opened fire at a small, private Christian school just south of downtown Nashville, Tenn. Six people were killed during the attack, and the shooter was killed by the police.
After the attack, a photo claiming to identify the shooter went viral on Twitter.
“BREAKING: Nashville Police have positively identified the corpse of the suspected Nashville Covenant School shooter as 31 year old Samantha Hyde,” a portion of one tweet said.
However, that person was not a shooter identified by the police in the Nashville attack. It was an edited photo of Hyde.
The photos have become so widely circulated after attacks in the U.S., it’s now considered a meme, which is an image that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.
Here's what we can VERIFY about Hyde and the origins of this meme.
Sam Hyde is a real person and hasn’t been the suspect in any mass shootings. However, his image has been shared repeatedly on social media in the immediate aftermath of a high-profile attack.
Many of the viral posts claiming Hyde is the “lone white gunman” or known suspect in a number of shootings across the U.S. originated on the anonymous online messaging board, 4chan. The image is a screenshot from one of Hyde’s YouTube videos from his channel, Million Dollar Extreme. Million Dollar Extreme was removed from YouTube in 2018 for violating community guidelines.
People who use the 4chan message board often do so with a goal to mislead or trick people into believing and sharing false information during times of crisis or breaking news. Hyde, a comedian and supporter of alt-right beliefs, is a popular figure on the message board.
Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told VERIFY the goal of the posts featuring Hyde is to misinform the media.
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