Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School student
Emma Gonzalez wipes away tears
during a CNN town hall meeting,
Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, at the
BB&T Center, in Sunrise, Fla.
(Michael Laughlin/South Florida
Sun-Sentinel via AP)
In this
Feb. 15,
2018
image
made
from
video,
David
Hogg
talks
about
his
experiences
at
Marjory
Stoneman
Douglas
High
when a
gunman
opened
fire and
killed
17
students
and
faculty
in
Parkland,
Fla..
Hogg, a
senior,
became
an
outspoken
advocate
for gun
control
in the
wake of
the
shooting,
making
him a
target
of
online
trolls.
(Photo:
Joshua
Replogle,
AP)
Shooting
survivors
endure
new
assault
_ from
online
trolls
By
ALINA
HARTOUNIAN
29
minutes
ago
One
student
was
teased
about
being a
“brown,
bald
lesbian.”
Another
was the
target
of
conspiracy
theorists
who
claimed
he was
really
an
actor.
When a
group of
teens
posed
for a
photo,
they
were
accused
of
lapping
up
attention
from the
news
cameras
and
“partying
like
rock
stars.”
Just
days
after
watching
their
classmates
die,
survivors
of the
Florida
school
shooting
came
under a
different
kind of
assault,
this
time
from
online
trolls
who
threatened
the
students
as they
seek
tighter
gun
laws.
In
the face
of such
attacks,
the
students
have
been
undeterred,
confronting
the
trolls
head-on
in
television
interviews
and on
social
media.
“They
see us
as a
threat.
And
honestly,
that’s
kind of
entertaining
to me.
And I
love it
because
it means
what we
are
doing is
working.
We are
changing
the
world,”
student
David
Hogg
told
MSNBC on
Wednesday
at a
rally
outside
the
Florida
Capitol.
Some
conservatives
have
suggested
that the
teens
are
being
used as
political
pawns,
but the
most
vicious
of the
trolls
go well
beyond
that,
into
personal
attacks
and
baseless
accusations.
Hogg
was the
subject
of
perhaps
the most
outlandish
conspiracy
to
surface
since
the Feb.
14
attack
at
Marjory
Stoneman
Douglas
High
that
killed
17
people.
He was
accused
of being
an actor
who was
never at
the
school.
The
theory
gained
momentum
in part
because
Hogg was
interviewed
by a
news
reporter
last
year
while on
vacation
in
California.
During
the
trip, he
was a
witness
to a
friend’s
confrontation
with a
lifeguard.
President
Donald
Trump’s
son,
Donald
Trump
Jr.,
liked a
tweet
linking
to a
story
suggesting
Hogg was
not a
survivor
of the
attack.
But
Hogg is
no
actor.
He
recorded
a
harrowing
video of
terrified
students
huddled
in a
darkened
room on
the day
of the
shooting.
His
classmates
responded
to the
trolls
with
biting
sarcasm.
Hogg
“is
smart,
funny,
and
diligent,
but my
favorite
thing
about
him is
undoubtedly
that
he’s
actually
a
26-year-old
felon
from
California,”
tweeted
classmate
Cameron
Kasky.
Another
troll
had cast
Hogg as
a
26-year-old
man who
was
arrested
for
drugs in
South
Carolina.
Others
latched
on to
Hogg’s
comment
that his
dad
previously
worked
for the
FBI as a
means to
discredit
him. The
FBI has
acknowledged
that
agents
received
a tip
about
suspect
Nikolas
Cruz but
failed
to
investigate
it.
The
students
who
endured
trolling
also
include
Emma
Gonzalez,
whose
short
haircut
and skin
color
drew
derision,
and
Kasky,
who
complained
on
Twitter
about
receiving
graphic
death
threats
on
Facebook.
Critics
also
assailed
the
students
for the
photos
that
were
taken
with a
CBS
reporter.
Trolls
compared
the
images
to
promotional
portraits
and said
the
smiling
teens
were
“laughing
uproariously.”
Hoax
claims
and
online
vitriol
have
long
plagued
the
survivors
of mass
shootings
and
families
of the
dead.
But many
of the
Stoneman
Douglas
students
faced a
new
layer of
scrutiny
after
they
pivoted
from
survivors
to
gun-control
activists.
University
of
Maryland
professor
Danielle
Citron,
who
studies
online
harassment,
said
such
internet
mobs are
meant
“to
silence
and to
intimidate”
and to
“shut
down a
social
movement
in its
tracks.”
But
Citron
said the
younger
generation,
who are
steeped
in
social
media,
can be
resilient.
These
young
people
have
grown up
with
social
media
and are
familiar
with its
vitriol,
as well
as its
power.
“My
Twitter
following
has
tripled
over the
past
day,”
Hogg
told
MSNBC.
“I think
that’s
in part
because
of these
trolls.
So for
that,
I’m
honestly
kind of
thankful.”
University
of
Illinois
at
Chicago
communications
professor
Steve
Jones
said
conventional
advice
is not
to
engage
with
trolls.
But he
said he
would
not
presume
to tell
the
students
what to
do,
especially
after
what
they
witnessed.
“They’ve
been
through
one of
the most
horrible
things
imaginable
and
whatever
they’re
doing in
response
to it is
itself
an act
of
bravery,”
said
Jones,
who
studies
online
behavior.
Piero
Guerra,
a
16-year-old
junior,
who
considered
himself
a
gun-rights
supporter
before
the
shooting,
said he
can
understand
why some
people
are
angry
with the
students’
efforts.
“But
my main
goal is
that
they see
our
perspective
as
well,”
Guerra
said.
“It’s
kind of
hard to
tell
people
to be
respectful
on the
internet
because
it’s
never
going to
happen.”
YouTube
removed
a
trending
conspiracy
video
titled
“David
Hogg
Can’t
Remember
His
Lines,”
which
showed
Hogg
stopping
to
collect
his
thoughts
and
repeating
answers
to
questions
about
the
shooting,
but many
similar
videos
are
still
available.
YouTube
said in
a
statement
that
hoax
videos
targeting
families
involved
in major
tragedies
violate
its
harassment
policy
and will
be
removed.
Hogg’s
mom,
Rebecca
Boldrick,
said the
online
harassment
has
scared
her son,
but also
made him
more
determined.
Her
14-year-old
daughter
also
survived
the
shooting.
“I’ve
always
said to
(my
children),
‘You
have to
be the
change
you want
to see
in the
world,’”
she
said.
Lenny
Pozner,
whose
6-year-old
son died
in the
2012
Sandy
Hook
massacre,
has
sought
to
debunk
conspiracy
theories
claiming
mass
shootings
were
staged
by the
government
as part
of an
anti-gun
agenda.
He is
still
harassed
online,
more
than
five
years
later.
Pozner
said
he’s now
advocating
for laws
that
would
treat
victims
of
mass-casualty
events
as a
protected
class
“so that
this
kind of
targeting
would be
considered
hate
speech
and a
crime.”
“But
I’m glad
people
are not
still
deluding
themselves
with
saying,
‘Just
ignore
the
trolls
and
they’ll
go
away.’
Because
they
have not
gone
away,”
Pozner
said.
“The
trolls
just get
bigger
and
faster.”