Shaun King Was Wrong Again, Young Turks Delete Their Videos
Shaun King Was Wrong Again prompting the Young Turks Delete Their Videos.Initially the left wing activist sought out a 40 year old white man as a suspect. But it turned out the white man was likely a witness to the event and was fleeing for his life. Police eventually arrested a suspect thanks in part to a tip received by Shaun King.But the social justice activist has now repeatedly pushed false narratives likely creating more harm than good.
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January 1st, the New York Times ran a story about a 7-year-old girl who was killed in what appeared to be a racially motivated hate crime.
Sean King pushed this story to his over 1 million followers, offering a reward for information about a 40-year-old white man with a beard driving a red pickup truck.
But as it turns out, the white man wasn't one of the suspects, and they arrested Eric Black Jr.
Many people argue that Shaun King only pushed the story because of the racial aspect of it.
But the main issue isn't what Shaun King did, so much as the ramifications.
This is the third time in the past several months that Shaun King has pushed out a false story that may have actually gotten innocent people hurt.
And what we're seeing beyond this is the Young Turks are now deleting their videos where they talked about the issue.
Today, let's take a look at what happened with the story of Jasmine Barnes, this innocent young girl who was killed, and let's take a look at the ramifications of the rise of internet vigilantism.
But before we get started, please head over to TimCast.com forward slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
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This is the story from January 1st.
Police searching for gunmen who fired into car and killed a seven-year-old.
They said the authorities, who said the shooting appeared random and unprovoked, were searching Monday for her killer.
The seven-year-old Jasmine Barnes is a second grader at a Houston-area elementary school and her death in the family's car early one morning over the holidays unnerved and perplexed the community.
The authorities described the gunman as a white man in his 40s with a beard wearing a red hooded sweatshirt and driving a red pickup truck.
The image of a white man suddenly firing on a black family raised questions about whether the shooting had been racially motivated.
Sheriff Gonzalez said the authorities had not established a motive and could not discount the possibility of a hate crime.
And that's exactly what we saw Sean King push out.
Urgent, all hands on deck.
A 40-year-old white man with a beard in a red pickup truck pulled up on 7-year-old Jasmine Barnes and her family near a Houston Walmart and shot and killed her and injured others.
He said he was joining the search for her killer and offered a $25,000 reward.
The difference between what the authorities said and what Sean King said is that Sean King said it was definitive.
A 40-year-old white man with a beard did this, while authorities said that was their suspect.
As it turns out, the man in the red pickup truck was seemingly just fleeing for his life.
Totally unrelated, heard the gunshots, and probably was just another witness.
The Harris County Sheriff Twitter account tweeted, Do you recognize this truck?
This is the truck of the suspect who fatally shot seven-year-old Jasmine Barnes.
Yesterday night, CNN reported that a tip from activist Sean King led police to a suspect in the killing of Jasmine Barnes.
As it turns out, it was Eric Black Jr.
who is now suspected of perpetrating this crime.
I want to thank again Sean King for his activism and help and raising awareness and the monies
that were put forward to be able to generate those calls, Sheriff Gonzalez said.
The shooting is believed to be a case of mistaken identity.
It was still dark out the morning the shooting occurred, Gonzalez pointed out, and Jasmine's
mothers and sisters had just gone through a traumatic experience which could have affected
their perception of those devastating moments.
Naturally, there are people saying the mother is lying.
Some people are actually speculating it was a drug deal gone wrong, and that she was friends with this guy on Facebook.
Now, I can't verify any of that, but it's what people are passing around, so take all of that with a grain of salt.
What the authorities are reporting right now is that it's a case of mistaken identity.
Maybe they thought she was someone else fired into a car, and a little girl is the one who paid the price.
Now, people on the left are arguing that what Sean King did with his tweet was a good thing, because it led to a tip that ultimately led to the arrest of the actual suspect.
Keep in mind, this man is still just a suspect, and he's still innocent until proven guilty, but once again, people are just going to assume, if you're a suspect, you must have done it.
But the real issue here is that Sean King has repeatedly pushed out false narratives, and in some instances, actually gotten innocent people hurt.
One of the more notorious stories was from May 24th, Washington Post said, The Post notes, The system was not designed to protect us.
trooper, his camera footage shows otherwise.
The Post notes, The 37-year-old North Texas woman's story was widely shared
on social media, aided and amplified by social activist Sean King, who recently
brought attention to the New York Times lawyer who made xenophobic comments about Spanish-speaking
employees at the New York deli.
The system was not designed to protect us.
It was designed to punish us, King wrote in a blog post.
And for it to do anything other than that, we must force it to work on our behalf.
But on Tuesday, the Texas Department of Safety released nearly two hours of body camera footage that starkly conflicted with Dixon-Cole's claims.
While parts of the video are blurred or inaudible to conceal Dixon-Cole's personal information, it shows her being pulled over and asked to take a sobriety test.
She's then handcuffed and transported to the Ellis County Jail, where she's charged with a DWI.
She was released Sunday night after posting bond.
Lee Merritt, Dixon Cole's Dallas-based attorney, apologized for her sexual assault claims in a statement Wednesday, saying the footage conflicted with what was reported to him.
But then, just a few months later in July, Sean King tweeted this out.
The utter depravity of white supremacist Proud Boys and Trump supporters showing up to disrupt Naya Wilson's vigil.
unidentified
There's a vigil in Oakland last night.
Thousands of people showed up and they're grieving, like including Nia's family.
They're there and they're grieving.
A teenager, I mean she is a high school senior, was just slashed to death and white supremacist In Trump hats, calling themselves Proud Boys.
It's a new white supremacist, it's like the new KKK.
They just put on nicer shirts, but it's just the KKK in a different form.
With Trump hats, show up to disrupt the vigil.
Show up to interrupt people grieving.
How sick do you have to be to show up and interrupt people during their moment of grief?
The story, pushed by King, was that Proud Boys showed up to a vigil for a young woman who was senselessly murdered.
But in fact, that story was fake.
NBC Bay Area reported two men detained after disputes during March remembering Bart's stabbing victim.
The actual story, a crowd of more than 1,000 people walked from the Bart station in Oakland to the Make Westing bar in downtown Oakland to then deter the alleged Alt-Right Proud Boys group from promoting its message at the bar and to demand justice for Wilson.
Sometime during the march, the dispute erupted in the downtown area and police detained the two men who were later released.
As they were being taken into custody, police said the crowd became disruptive and also tossed M80s, although police didn't say whether they threw them at officers.
Sean King pushed the narrative 12 hours after this story was reported, claiming it was the Proud Boys who went to their vigil, when in fact, there was no Proud Boys meeting at that bar, and it was the March that was seeking out the Proud Boys.
Sean King has a history of pushing false narratives to play up to this racial narrative.
But it's not just Sean King.
The Young Turks did this as well.
And now, the Young Turks are deleting the videos they made talking about the story.
Ryan Saavedra of the Daily Wire noted, the Young Turks are quietly deleting their YouTube videos
where they falsely claimed that a white man murdered seven-year-old Jasmine Barnes.
He linked to the deleted videos and noted that some of them are actually still live.
When you go to the Young Turks video, you are greeted with this message.
This video is unavailable.
However, the damage report on YouTube, with over 100,000 subscribers,
still has this video active showing Sean King's tweet.
Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks responded by saying, You have to give Sean King tremendous credit for helping to
solve the case and for seeking justice rather than an agenda when it
turned out initial reports of a white man in a red truck doing the shooting were wrong. Will
anyone in right-wing media give him credit for following the truth? The question is, do you
give someone special credit for doing the bare minimum?
If you're going to seek justice, the truth is extremely important.
Now, to Sean King's credit, the media is saying his tip helped catch the suspect, and he was just repeating essentially what the authorities were saying.
But the issue isn't this one time, this one instance.
It's how Sean King has repeatedly done this, and in some instances hasn't apologized for putting out false information.
So, if you were going to ask me, I'd say no.
Sean King doesn't deserve credit for following through on this story.
He pushed the narrative.
It was the only thing he could have done.
He literally did the bare minimum.
Now, again, him getting involved ultimately was a good thing, but I'm not going to act like he did anything special simply because he followed through on his promise.
The race of the individual doesn't matter at all, and he doesn't deserve special credit simply because it turns out the shooter was a black man.
But then we have the question of the Young Turks deleting their videos.
And this is an interesting conundrum.
Was it right or was it wrong?
Certainly people on the right are criticizing the Young Turks, saying deleting it is the wrong move.
They're trying to cover up evidence, essentially.
But you have to wonder, is it good that the Young Turks have this fake news floating around on the internet?
Because even if they tried updating the story with the correct information, people will still see the embedded videos somewhere else.
In my opinion, they should not delete the videos.
They should just put an annotation, a card, maybe an end card, and change the description and the title saying, Major update, here's the real information.
The way I see it is, these videos exist, they're shared on other platforms.
By updating the information on the story, if someone follows to that video, they might then find the correct information.
Simply deleting it just kind of covers up the embarrassment of pushing fake news, and those who are still sharing the video won't know exactly what happened.
They'll just see the headline, which still exists, and believe it's true.
The bigger story here is the rise of internet vigilantism.
People want to solve the case on their own.
They form a mob online and go after people.
And this affects the right and the left similarly.
Willamette Week ran this story, Portland professional skateboarder receiving death threats after the internet falsely identifies him as Antifa protester harassing a widow.
They say Charlie Wilkins was confused and alarmed by death threats he woke up to in the morning.
The professional skateboarder who lives in Portland with his wife Victoria says he's been falsely identified by right-wing social media users as an Antifa protester who slung hateful remarks at a woman during the city's most recent political In a video Wilkins filmed of himself and posted online, he notes, I've been grossly misidentified.
I was never at a protest and that's definitely not me.
My wife and I are now being threatened and harassed.
Please help me clear my name and find the real guy.
Thank you.
I'm not going to give credit to Sean King for his involvement.
Because even if this one time something good happened, the rise of internet vigilantism is a terrible thing.
And Sean King has yet to correct some of the other lies he's pushed out on the internet.
Following the story of the false rape accusation, I made a video where I said Sean King was right to apologize and correct the story.
And in response, Sean King actually blocked me on Twitter, even though it wasn't necessarily a direct criticism, and I was giving him respect for owning up to his mistake.
It didn't matter.
Sean King now continues to seek out vigilante justice, and once again pushed a false narrative.
But let me know what you think in the comments below, and we'll keep the conversation going.
In the end, do you think the good outweighs the bad, or the bad outweighs the good?
In my opinion, I think online vigilantism is pretty much a bad thing.
Because I am a firm believer in Blackstone's formulation that it's better that ten guilty persons go free than one innocent person suffers.
And that means even if nine perpetrators are captured due to the online hate mob, If there's at least one person who was innocently targeted because of this and has their life disrupted, that's just not a good thing.
And we should follow the process to make sure we protect the innocent.
But again, let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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