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A Toronto retired banker was caught in the center of a political storm on Wednesday in connection with the shooting of Charlie Kirk, a right-wing commentator.
77-year-old Michael Mallinson was initially unaware of this. It was not until around 6 pm that he received a panicked call from his daughter during his nap. His daughter urged him to delete his social media account immediately because his name and photos were being circulated online, and one account claimed that he was the suspect in the shooting.
But the problem is that Marlinson said he had never been to Utah.
Marlinson said: "This shocked and frightened me. First of all, the shooting itself, and secondly, I was actually involved in this way."
Charlie Kirk is a U.S. right-wing activist and a close ally of President Donald Trump, and is influential in winning young Republican voters. He was shot dead in Orem, Utah at around 12:20 noon local time. Although the suspect's identity has not been officially confirmed, the state's governor called the incident a political assassination.
Rumor post accusing Marlinson of the Gunner
This rumor seems to originate from an account that pretends to be Fox Reno 11, a Nevada news channel. The account posted a splicing picture, with pictures of Marlinson on one side and images of a suspect being detained by police after Kirk's shooting.
The man in detention in the photo is an old man wearing glasses and a blue shirt with a hairstyle similar to that of Marinson on an old Twitter account. Marinson said he thought he had deleted that account after Elon Musk acquired the platform.
However, the Marinson photo posted by the account was actually a close-up of the suspect who was mistakenly regarded as a police custody. This post not only pointed Marinson as the gunman, but also lied that he was a registered Democrat in Utah.
Although the original post has been deleted, other posts that share the same error message have received thousands of views on social platform X.
Fox Channel's parent company, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, clarified in a statement to the Toronto division of CBC that the post had nothing to do with its television stations and said they were working to remove it.
Craig Silverman, co-founder of Indicator, a media focused on digital fraud research, analyzed that there are too many tools available to "armchair detectives" on the Internet today, and people are easily misled by inaccurate information.
He pointed out that those who spread rumors about Marinson were likely to have been led by some inaccurate search results or clues when trying to search for more information on the suspect.
Silverman said: "In this case, the best thing to do is to be patient and not rush to draw conclusions before all the details are revealed."
"Shocking" error message propagation speed
Marinson said he received a large amount of information before disabling his social media account, all related to his "suspected involvement in the shooting."
"I received some harassment messages on Facebook, but some people I didn't know reminded me that my name and photos had been spread, so I was more careful." Marinson said. "Nevertheless, it's quite shocking that such misinformation can spread so quickly."
He said his family had contacted the Toronto Police Department and informed of the situation. Police seem interested in discussing the matter with him, but he has no chance to contact the officer yet.
"I feel violated," said Marinson.
"I have a lot of friends on Facebook from all over the world, and we've been in touch. But now I have to temporarily disable my account and don't even have time to explain anything to them. Now, my wife and I can only tell you via email: 'Hey, that photo is mine, and the name is mine, but that person is not me.'"
About the author
Oskar McCarson
Reporter
Oscar McCarson is a network author for the Toronto division of CBC.
Some information sources in this article: Naama Weingarten, Associated Press
