I'm just going to be right up front uh this was a stage and event period my name is Thomas Matthew Crooks I hate Republicans I hate Trump and guess what you got the wrong guy someone who has a lot of experience that is a trained individual likely someone who is working with the three-letter agencies for multi years probably since the time of the recording of that black rock video so these are just a few of the conspiracy theories that are spreading online right now and they are coming from people on the left of politics and
also on the right some people appear to be spreading these theories for clicks or for clout while other people appear to be doing it to try and turn a bit of a profit unfortunately conspiracy theories have no longer remained in the fringes of our society but we are seeing that spread to mainstream individuals becoming common um you know among Society not just in the US but Around The World ABC News verifier has been tracking some of these unfounded conspiracy theories since the shooting let's take a look now at that black rock conspiracy theory so it
comes from I guess a tiny grain of Truth to reach a completely unfounded conclusion I teach AP and honors economic in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania the asset management company Black Rock has actually confirmed that the shooter Thomas Crooks was an unpaid student who appeared in this ad promoting black Rock's retirement plans well a large amount of conspiracy theories are based on kernels of truth and people tend to take these experiences or cherry-pick information that is aligned with their beliefs and take that further and give that more weight than perhaps it merits what we've been also examining is
people who are spreading these conspiracy theories just to make money one of these people is cryptocurrency influencer Matt Wallace who has 1.8 million followers on X and who has engaged directly with the ex-owner Elon Musk several times over the last few years he definitely has Cloud we have contacted him for comment but what we can see is that since the shooting he has been posting regularly and most of his posts link back directly to an ad where he's trying to sell t-shirts something that they are also benefiting from is increased engagement so for example if
they host a podcast or a show by sharing this merchandise that people are interested in purchasing they're also going to be driving further traffic to their own websites and their own other offerings so what what can you do to make sure you don't get sucked in by grifters or by conspiracy theorists recommend just making sure that your information is coming from a variety of sources um that have perhaps been backed up so for example if you are having multiple um trusted Outlets are reporting the same thing then you can perhaps be more confident that that
is going to be correct
