Social media accounts were serving up conspiracy theories within hours of a container ship knocking down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on Tuesday.
Federal and local law enforcement said they suspected no foul play, but several people on X, the former Twitter, claimed that the incident looked deliberate, and that it may have been orchestrated by terrorists or shadowy foreign actors.
“There should be a serious investigation into the horrifying tragedy of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland. Is this an intentional attack or an accident?” far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) pondered in a post on X — the latest in a long list of conspiracy theories she’s helped push into the mainstream.
Some accounts suggested that Israel directed the freighter to strike the bridge as retaliation for the U.S. allowing the United Nations to adopt a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Other accounts mused that the shipping company must have adopted “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies that lowered hiring standards and resulted in less-qualified staff piloting the ship.
There’s no evidence for the DEI theory, but it’s a concept that X owner Elon Musk has himself promoted, baselessly, as an explanation for recent air travel safety snafus.
And Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist best known for defaming the grieving parents of children who were murdered in school shootings, said the bridge collapse “looks deliberate.”
“A cyber-attack is probable,” Jones proclaimed on X, the platform where Musk restored his account in December after Jones had been banned for almost five years. “WW3 has already started.”
Andrew Tate, the social media personality who is facing rape and human trafficking charges in Romania, joined Jones in peddling the “cyber-attack” theory.
“Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports,” Tate wrote on X. “Foreign agents of the USA attack digital infrastructures. Nothing is safe….
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