Twitter Suspends Mysterious Account That Helped Spread Covington Catholic Video
FISHY
Taken down after CNN raised questions about phony profile picture and other red flags.
YouTube
Twitter has suspended an account that fueled the spread of the Covington Catholic video after CNN inquired about its suspicious characteristics. The @2020fight handle dates back to 2016 and purportedly belonged to a California “teacher and advocate” but used the profile of a Brazilian blogger. CNN reported that in the last several weeks, it has tweeted 130 times a day and has 40,000 followers—which experts said was a red flag. On Friday, the account posted a snippet of video showing Kentucky high-schooler Nicholas Sandmann facing off with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial, surrounded by boisterous Covington students. That video, which CNN said was viewed more than 2.5 million times and retweeted 14,400 times, sparked outrage over the students’ behavior—though longer video of the encounter that emerged later raised questions about whether the boys were mocking or intimidating Phillips, a Vietnam veteran. “Twitter’s rules forbid users from creating ‘fake and misleading accounts,’ and shortly after CNN Business asked Twitter about the account, it was suspended,” the cable-news outlet reported.
