School shooting: Media mistakes Ryan Lanza Facebook page for Newtown killer
Shortly after authorities identified the shooter in the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre as Ryan Lanza, media pointed to the Facebook page of a man with matching details. It wasn't the same man--or his brother.
By GABRIELLE LEVY, UPI.com
Just after 2 p.m. Friday, a 24-year-old New Jersey man named Ryan Lanza was identified as the perpetrator of a horrific massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
It turns out that the shooter, identified by authorities later Friday, was Adam Lanza--not his brother, Ryan--a 20-year-old.
Lanza allegedly walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday morning, killed a classroom full of kindergartners before killing their teacher--his mother--and then himself.
Almost immediately, a Facebook profile photo of Ryan began circulating online, on social networks and television. The gleeful subtex: we got the guy.
Except--whoops--despite the unlikely coincidence that there was another Ryan Lanza, from Hoboken, who lives in Newtown, the profile was the wrong person.
Slate, after initially linking to (the wrong) Lanza's page, tweeted a correction that included a screenshot of him updating his Facebook page.
"Everyone shut the f*** up it wasn't me," Lanza posted. "I'm on the bus home now it wasn't me... IT WASN'T ME I WAS AT WORK IT WASN'T ME."
Media sites removed the photos quickly, but not before thousands of people had shared the image and widely perpetuated the falsehood.
BUZZFEED
CBS
FOX
Huffington Post
 |
| Huffington Post |
Another Ryan Lanza, @Ryan__Lanza on Twitter, has also been the subject of the false attention, gaining thousands of followers in the hours after the name began to circulate.
source: UPI
No comments:
Post a Comment