- [Vincente] His name
was released at Sam Hyde.
- [Woman] (foreign language) Samuel Hyde.
- Whenever there's a mass shooting,
people on social media will try to say
that this guy is the gunman, or this guy,
or maybe even this guy.
But the truth is that internet trolls
are trying to trick you.
(intense piano music)
Hey guys, welcome to Trackback,
where we track all the weird hoaxes
spreading on the internet.
Since 2015, this guy's face has circulated
on social media after most mass shootings.
It happened after the
shootings in Parkland,
San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Orlando,
and during the Sutherland
Springs shooting,
a local politician even named Sam Hyde
as the shooter on CNN.
- [Vincente] His name
was released as Sam Hyde.
- Yikes!
So if he's not the
shooter, who is Sam Hyde?
- I'm Sam Hyde, I'm an important thinker.
- He's a troll and comedian who's part
of the sketch comedy group,
Million Dollar Extreme.
They briefly had a show on Adult Swim
that gained a following
among the alt-right.
Hyde is also popular among
users on the notorious
anonymous message board 4chan.
They've made him into a meme,
which basically means
the trolls own him now.
You'll also find
photoshopped images of Hyde
being shared on 4chan, and then
more widely across Twitter,
with various aliases such as Samantha Hyde
or Samir Al-Hajeed.
That's an attempt to
portray Hyde as a Muslim man
in order to stoke religious tensions.
We don't know if Sam Hyde played any part
in orchestrating this hoax,
though his TV show,
Million Dollar Extreme,
did spread it on Twitter.
While Hyde is the most common example,
he's not the only one.
German YouTuber Drachenlord
has also been falsely
named as the shooter in the
YouTube headquarters shooting,
the Poway synagogue shooting,
and the Parkland shooting.
Who else?
You'll often find YouTubers being
falsely named as the gunman.
- Some stupid idiot out there
trying to make me look bad.
- Paul Denino was falsely
named as the gunman
after a shooting at a video
game tournament in Jacksonville.
He's even been blamed for
shootings that never happened,
like this false alarm
incident in Michigan.
Countless people have
been victims of this hoax.
- Guys, I am not the YouTube
headquarters shooter.
- After the 2018 shooting
at YouTube's headquarters,
all of these people were
falsely named as the shooter.
In the aftermath of a tragedy,
trolls and other bad actors intentionally
spread this kind of disinformation
in order to fool people.
Don't share it, don't
like it, don't retweet it.
That's exactly what the
trolls want you to do.
Some do it because they get a
kick out of fooling the media.
Others want to add to
the chaos and confusion
during breaking news events.
Here's your Trackback tip.
After a mass shooting,
wait for confirmation
from local police or other
knowledgeable authorities
about the identity of the shooter.
That's your episode of Trackback.
Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe.
(slow intense music)
