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Parkland shooting survivors respond to smear campaign calling them actors

"No one is paying us to do this. We want to do this because we love our city and school so much."

CREDIT: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call
CREDIT: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

In the wake of last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, scores of students began rallying in support of stricter gun control measures, many of them citing the tragic deaths of their classmates as motivation for them to speak out. Now, those same survivors are being forced to push back against claims by certain right-wing circles that they’re “crisis actors” or paid activists working for the Democratic Party.

No one is paying us to do this. We want to do this because we love our city and school so much,” student Lizzie Eaton told CNN on Wednesday. “We just want to make a difference.”

Eaton, a junior at Stoneman Douglas, spent most of Tuesday in Tallahassee, lobbying state legislators for increased gun control measures with her fellow student activists. Though she says she’s traditionally camera-shy, she “wanted to be [there]” to help the her hometown of Parkland, Florida recover from last week’s shooting, where 17 of her classmates were killed.

“I’m never in front of the camera. I just wanted to be up here and help my city,” she said. “We never thought something like this would happen to us. We learn about this every day in school. …It really touched all of our hearts. The 3,000 kids in our school, the middle school, the whole community is coming together. We just want to make a change. We’re not actors.”

Eaton is one of several Parkland survivors addressing the handful of abhorrent conspiracy theories floating around following last week’s shooting. Those theories include claims that the students were never enrolled at Stoneman Douglas and unfounded rumors suggesting that they are “FBI plants” whose job is to defend the bureau, which came under fire after officials revealed they had received tips about the shooter prior to the February 14 tragedy. Others have claimed, without proof, that the students are anti-gun crusaders being funded by liberal billionaire donor George Soros to stir up political animosity.

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“I am so sorry that these people have lost their faith in America,” 17-year-old student David Hogg told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday, addressing the groups behind those conspiracy theories. “I know I certainly haven’t. …These people saying this is absolutely disturbing and I am not an actor. I am a son of a former FBI agent…. I am not a crisis actor. I am somebody who had to live through this and witness this.”

Additional conspiracy theories about the Stoneman Douglas students began been cropping up across social media this week, including a YouTube video featuring an older media clip of Hogg speaking to reporters about a confrontation he had witnessed in Redondo Beach, California in 2017; according to Motherboard, the video was originally uploaded by user “Mike m” with the caption, “DAVID HOGG THE ACTOR….” Many of the user comments beneath it claimed that Hogg was “bought and paid by CNN and George Soros.”

The video has since been removed by YouTube because it violated the platform’s harassment and bullying policies, however it’s since been uploaded by multiple other users across several sites.

Another Twitter account recently posted a photo of a yearbook page containing Hogg’s school picture, claiming that Hogg had actually attended Redondo Shores High School in California and had graduated in 2015. However, that theory was quickly debunked by Twitter user @_joey_wong, who posted a video of himself opening up the 2017 Marjory Stoneman Douglas yearbook to Hogg’s photo 11th grade photo.

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A number of high-profile conservatives have willingly jumped on these conspiracy theories as well: former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke suggested on Twitter that the student activism was part of a “well ORGANIZED effort” by Soros and retweeted others suggesting that the students’ messages should be ignored due to their ages. Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe claimed on his public Facebook page that “‘students’ [were] being bused in to the Florida Capitol” to rally for gun control. In Florida, an aide to Republican state Rep. Shawn Harrison was quickly fired after he suggested to reporters that the students being interviewed on television were “crisis actors.” (Harrison later released a statement apologizing to the students and saying that he was “appalled” by the comments.)

Many of the students have so far taken the criticism and conspiracy-mongering in stride.

“@davidhogg111 is smart, funny, and diligent, but my favorite thing about him is undoubtedly that he’s actually a 26 year-old felon from California,” joked Stoneman Douglas student Cameron Kasky, remarking on the video of Hogg in Redonodo Beach.

“I honestly cannot stop laughing about it, that [conspiracy theory is] my favorite,” fellow student survivor and activist Emma González tweeted in response.

The majority of students are also seizing on the opportunity to deliver an impassioned message.

“I’m not getting paid for this,” said student Rachel Catania, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. “I want to come out here on behalf of my city and my town and just spread the message on behalf of those who can’t. And I’m going to make sure that those 17 innocent people who had their lives taken from them did not die for no reason.”