How social media trolls capitalized on the Las Vegas shooting

Internet agitators took advantage of the chaos unfolding following the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

A national tragedy became yet another opportunity for trolls across Facebook and Twitter to cause trouble.

Hours after a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas Strip casino and killed at least 58 people, hoax posts flooded across social media, with some people lying about victims and others spreading false information about the shooter. The gunman was found dead at the scene and was identified by police as Stephen Paddock.

The Washington Post has been compiling an ongoing list of all the hoaxes springing out of this mass shooting. BuzzFeed News also has a tracker for all the fake news flooding Twitter from the attack in Las Vegas.

As the investigation into the deadliest mass shooting in US history unfolds, trolls have no problem taking advantage of people on social media, whether it's to spread propaganda or all part of a prank. These hoaxes frequently happen after large tragedies, making them a sad reminder that people should be cautious of what they read online, particularly following this type of event.

Just minutes after the shooting unfolded in Las Vegas, trolls took to Twitter to spread the "Sam Hyde" shooter hoax, a meme where the comedian's photo is posted online blaming any mass shooting on him. The hoax also popped up after the attacks at UCLA and San Bernardino.

There have also been multiple fake posts about people looking for "victims" in the attack, like this tweet, which features a photo the same account has tweeted before in previous tragedies. The photo is actually of a suspect connected to a murder in Mexico.

Several accounts that had posted these fake tweets were suspended by midday Monday, while others still remained online.

"We are reviewing and removing content that violates our rules -- both proactively and through reports," a spokeswoman from Twitter said.

The name "Geary Danley" had also been a part of misinformation online, thanks to a misidentified Facebook account. During the investigation, police said they were searching for a "Marilou Danley," a female companion who was overseas at the time. Officers then said she wasn't involved with the shooting.

But before that information had been revealed, people online had already been fervently looking for any details about her. They found a Facebook profile for a Geary Danley, and jumped to the conclusion that he was the gunman.

They looked through his Facebook likes, photos and friends and marked Danley as a mass murderer based off his profile. In an article now deleted by The Gateway Pundit, the publication called Danley a shooter who was "associated with the Anti-Trump Army." The website has misidentified people shortly after tragedies before, The Daily Beast reported.

The hoax grew to hit the first page of Google's search results, with a 4chan /pol/ thread popping up, falsely naming Danley as the shooter. The top result on Google has since been removed, with an apology from Google.

Here's its statement on the mistake:

    "Unfortunately, early this morning we were briefly surfacing an inaccurate 4chan website in our Search results for a small number of queries. Within hours, the 4chan story was algorithmically replaced by relevant results. This should not have appeared for any queries, and we'll continue to make improvements to prevent this from happening in the future."

Things aren't looking that great for Facebook, either. Just two days after founder Mark Zuckerberg asked for forgiveness for the political rift that Facebook's caused, the Safety Check feature, designed to help people near an emergency tell friends whether they're safe, became a hotbed of trolling.

For several hours after the shooting, there were links on the Safety Check page from "TheAntiMedia.org" and "MyTodayTV.com," which asked for bitcoin donations while advertising "funny video, game show, clip hot" in the URL. Facebook has since cleaned up the page to only host videos and links from official news outlets.

Facebook didn't respond to a request for comment. It provided this statement to various outlets:

    "Our Global Security Operations Center spotted the post this morning and removed it. However, its removal was delayed by a few minutes, allowing it to be screen captured and circulated online. We are working to fix the issue that allowed this to happen in the first place and deeply regret the confusion this caused."

The Islamic State group said the gunman joined IS shortly before committing the mass murder, but the FBI disproved that claim, saying that Paddock had no connection to the terrorist organization. The tweet from the Associated Press about the IS claim has nearly twice as many retweets as the FBI's statement disproving it.