George Floyd protests: How to avoid disinformation and misinformation on Facebook and Twitter

George Floyd is not really dead. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros is supplying bricks to protesters.

Hoaxes, conspiracy theories and other falsehoods like these are spreading on Facebook and Twitter following Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis.

Bad actors exploit large-scale events dominating the national conversation to sow chaos and fear and deepen distrust and division, disinformation experts say. In this case, they’ve seized on America’s rawest political division – race – and the growing furor over police brutality to hijack protests across the country.

"Protest" has surged to become the most mentioned category of misinformation, overshadowing COVID-19, according to public health nonprofit Public Good Projects' misinformation tracking tool Project RCAID.

“We are seeing a rapidly evolving situation, sustained attention and most of all just deep existing divisions that make it a perfect confluence of events for disinformation from a range of actors who are known to spread it," says Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.