Professor wrongly labelled as racist in Charlottesville

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Professor wrongly labelled as racist in Charlottesville

15 August 2017 US & Canada

A university professor has been wrongly described as a white supremacist by amateur internet detectives on social media wishing to publicly shame those who took part in rallies in Charlottesville.

Professor Kyle Quinn who works at the University of Arkansas was mistakenly identified as one of the unmasked protesters taking part in far right protests on Friday.

The professor's ordeal began on Saturday when thousands began sharing an image of a bearded man posted by Twitter user Yes Youre Racist. It has been publishing photos of those who attended the rally under the hashtag #ExposetheAltRight.

-snip-

The request didn't go unheard. The internet's digital detectives found an image of Professor Quinn and claimed he was the man pictured at the rally. Although the professor may share a similar look and build to the man photographed, he was in fact more than 1,000 miles away from the demonstrations in Virginia.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40935419

[JI7]

1. while i'm all for outing the thugs and don't care if they lose their jobs, the way this is being

done is not right.

this happened before with things like the boston bombing where some brown people running away from it were grabbed and held . and then the internet started looking at videos trying to catch the person who did it.

but they were ALL wrong. nobody on the internet got it. and in that case they had videos and everyone was focused on it.

[hrmjustin]

2. I wonder if he can sue the people who did this to him.

[Calista241]

3. Fuck yeah he can.

If he's so inclined, he can also probably go after Twitter. I'm shocked they haven't shut this down yet.

And if anyone, not even just the wrongly accused people, can attribute a crime committed against them to this twitter handle, they're going to get sued big time.

So if the crazy hot dog dude has his tires slashed when he goes back, @yesyoureracist is going to be filing for bankruptcy.

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. As I said, since no one is ever wrong about anything

this was a GREAT idea.

[AlexSFCA]

5. what other tools we have

I think counter protestors should really double down on high resolution images and video from all kinds of angles for better recognition. This is a perfect non-violent measure which will deter many to openly participate in these extremist activities.

[burrowowl]

6. Those that claimed that the professor

was a racist must publicly retract their posts and pay damages.

[uponit7771]

7. They need to be dead on accurate