UNMASKED

Report: Twitter Account That Spread Covington Video Appears to Be Run by California Teacher

Amid speculation the anonymous account was part of a foreign misinformation campaign.

The Twitter account that fueled the spread of the video of Covington Catholic schoolboys and their confrontation with a Native American activist appears to be a U.S. account—and not part of a Russian misinformation campaign as had been speculated. The account, @2020fight, seems to be run by a woman who described herself as a San Francisco Bay Area teacher, NBC News reports. It had 41,000 followers and was run anonymously when it picked up the video showing Covington Catholic High School students chanting at Omaha Tribe elder Nathan Phillips. Twitter suspended @2020fight on Monday for violating its policy on fake accounts, raising suspicions it might have been part of a foreign misinformation campaign designed to stoke racial tensions. But NBC News says the account appears to belong to a a California teacher who went by “Talia” on multiple social accounts, who also ran a related Twitter account on which she promoted her Teachers Pay Teachers—an online store where teachers buy and sell lesson plans and resources.

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