CNN’s Brian Stelter said during an appearance on the network that people have to be careful when they are going on social media and looking at videos of the violence of the LA riots, warning that the videos could have been posted “two days ago,” and will give a “false impression” of how much unrest is happening in the California city.
Stelter appeared on CNN, and said, “We all live on our phones these days, we’re all scrolling through social media. you’ve got to be careful at a delicate moment like this to look at the timestamps, look at the dates, look at when things are actually posted, and if they’re really from the situation they’re purporting to be.”
“A lot of these algorithms are servicing hours old, or even days old content. So you might be looking at a video of something wondering what’s happening in LA. It’s actually two days ago. And that’s only matters because it can get people a false impression of what’s actually happening at a moment of unrest,” Stelter added.
Over the last several days, there have been dozens of arrests for mass looting, arson, attempted murder, as well as other charges launched against the rioters in LA. The events started on Friday when ICE set up a staging area near a Home Depot, and a mob of agitators began to target and attack law enforcement. Riots have been going on for four days.
The violence continued into Saturday and Sunday, so much so that President Donald Trump had to call in the National Guard to keep the peace in LA. Democrats and California Governer Gavin Newsom said that doing so only made the riots worse, and the governor has sued the Trump administration, claiming that the president’s federalization of the Guard was illegal. 700 Marines also mobilized to support the Guard and local officers.