Washington (AFP)

Since the start of the protests in the United States, information has swarmed: the death of George Floyd would have been staged. The authorities are said to have cut the media in the capital. People would be paid to be "professional anarchists".

Enough to distrust and divide as the country experiences a historic wave of anger after the death of this 46-year-old black man at the hands of a white police officer on May 25 in Minneapolis.

Such allegations, many of which aim to discredit the demonstrators, risk further widening the gap between the supporters of the demonstrations and their opponents, as well as between the demonstrators and the police.

The events that are shaking the United States at the moment are "extremely vulnerable to manipulation by social networks," says Emerson Brooking, who works on disinformation in a research laboratory at the Atlantic Council.

The death of George Floyd and the protests that followed combined the three, "he added.

- "Delegitimize demonstrators" -

George Floyd died handcuffed, face down, after a policeman knelt on his neck for endless minutes. He was accused of using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill to buy cigarettes.

Americans have beaten the pavement in the country's 50 states to denounce his death during largely peaceful rallies, but looting, burning and vandalism have also occurred in several cities.

President Donald Trump then threatened to call on the military to end the unrest.

"The majority of the false claims I have observed aim to delegitimize the protesters," said Brooking.

"By inventing things, taking them out of context or shining a spotlight on violent incidents in the midst of demonstrations, the overwhelming majority of which are peaceful, it becomes possible for a government to justify the use of more repressive force against them".

Example of attempts to divide: members of the far-right nationalist group Identity Evropa claimed on Twitter to be antifas with the account @ANTIFA_US, and encouraged "the comrades" to "go to residential areas", "the white neighborhoods ", to" take back what is ours ".

Screenshots of the tweet were then posted to Facebook.

Facebook users have also written that the death of George Floyd was a staging, even that he was still alive, although his autopsy report has been made public.

- "Coordinated operation" -

Also posted on Facebook were images of a bogus flyer seeking to recruit "Professional Anarchists", a document falsely presented as being affiliated with a local branch of the Democratic Party and the Open Society foundation of George Soros. The latter is a favorite target for conspiracy theories among conservatives.

As for the info on a June 1 cut in communications in Washington, it was propagated with the hashtag #DCBlackout.

Alex Engler, who studies the implications of artificial intelligence at the Brookings institution, says the media info has been promoted "by hundreds of suspicious accounts" during "what appears to be an operation coordinate ".

This "has led to hundreds of thousands of tweets and exposed millions of people to this conspiracy theory," he said.

Spreading such false information could undermine the protesters' efforts, says Engler.

"The demonstrators have legitimate grievances and their message is effective when it is broadcast with honesty. When this message is muddled by claims which prove to be false, as with the #DCBlackout, undecided observers can turn away" from the movement.

Mr. Brooking nods. The disinformation "has no political color and hurts everyone. In this case, however, it hurts the protesters".

Because "the demonstrators are dependent on the support of the population, which false information can undermine".

© 2020 AFP