How conspiracy theories turned L.A. protests into a misinformation storm
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June 12, 2025 (LAPost.com) — When protests erupted across downtown Los Angeles in response to intensified ICE raids, a parallel storm brewed online: an explosion of conspiracy theories, doctored videos, fake photos and AI-generated fabrications. The L.A. protests began on June 6 with demonstrations against deportation policies.
Federal authorities deployed approximately 4,700 personnel including 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines — to L.A. without Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval, prompting a lawsuit and emergency curfew downtown.
In the chaotic swirl of media coverage, misleading visual content gained traction. Fake or repurposed video clips — including footage from the 2020 George Floyd protests and the military simulation game Arma 3 — were falsely presented as live scenes from L.A. One widely shared fake video featured supposedly Marines “driving into L.A.,” when it actually showed troops moving through San Diego County.
Bricks, claimed to be planted by “Soros-funded” agitators readying violence, circulated widely — but the image actually originated from a Malaysian building supplier, not any L.A. protest. Disinformation experts say such digital echoes from past unrest turned L.A. into “catnip for right‑wing agitators” by feeding a preexisting narrative.
The crisis extended to AI platforms. X’s Grok and OpenAI’s ChatGPT refused to acknowledge images of National Guard soldiers sleeping on a federal building’s concrete floor, instead misattributing them to deployments in Afghanistan in 2021. These photos — confirmed by the San Francisco Chronicle, L.A. community images and Pentagon sources—depicted troops deployed in L.A.
“Pictures are easily manipulated; that idea has been there,” said James Cohen, media professor at CUNY Queens College.”But when it comes to videos, we’ve just been trained as an individual society to believe videos. Up until recently, we haven’t really had the opportunity to assume videos could be faked at the scale that it’s being faked at this point”.
Further muddying the water, an AI-generated video featuring a faux National Guard soldier “Bob” falsely describing protesters throwing oil balloons went viral.
Misinformation spread through partisan channels. Figures like actor James Woods and Senator Ted Cruz amplified false images and narratives, sometimes referring to peaceful protest zones as “invaded territory”. X community notes and fact-checking outlets confirmed these visuals were misleading — but by then, the damage had been done.
The Guardian reported false claims — such as fake video links to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum inciting protests and recycled hoaxes about pallets of bricks — gained millions of views.
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