The Plague

Life+is+precious+but+yet+can+be+very+short.+Remembering+Orlando+Mass+Shooting.+by+Thank+you%2C+my+friends%2C+Adam%21+is+licensed+under+CC+BY-NC-SA+2.0

“Life is precious but yet can be very short. Remembering Orlando Mass Shooting.” by Thank you, my friends, Adam! is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

By: Nithya Rajesh, Writer

“Help me! I don’t want to be here!” 

   These were the last words uttered by a first-grade student killed by a mentally deranged person in the deadliest mass shooting in an elementary school, Sandy Hook. Blacksburg, Las Vegas, Parkland. You may recognize these locations in the United States because of mass shootings that happened there. In Blacksburg, Virginia, a student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people. Las Vegas, the concert shooting was known as the deadliest in modern time, killing 58 people, and the shooting that happened in Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High School was a massacre that killed 17 people. However, sites were created that would discredit all of this, saying that the Sandy Hook shooting was done by a group of actors. All of this completely lacks authenticity but lures people in day by day.

   However, this is not just happening at schools; shootings have also occurred at religious institutions. The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was attacked by a white supremacist swarmed with a conspiracy theory that falsely accused people of Jewish descent of having the plot to commit “white genocide.” Eleven people were killed in this violence. These conspiracy theory websites have raised levels of hate this country has never seen; for example, Anti-Semitism and systemic racism. These conspiracy theories of the dark web can lead individuals down a dark hole, eventually leading them to cause violence and harm to innocent individuals. Although these sites have defenses such as the First Amendment, information should not be so blatantly false to rile up a group of misinformed individuals. 

   There is so much behind what is inside the minds of people that commit such heinous crimes. The science behind how articles recycle and how people end up watching so many articles that they are stuck into conspiracy theories that they begin to believe is so baffling. That is why informing the public about these sites before they get into anyone’s hands is an effective way of preventing it before a website is prevalent in a person’s mind. Especially now, when so many people have an enormous amount of time on their hands during the pandemic, we must teach the public about false pictures and skills to differentiate them from genuine ones. Making the public aware is a crucial step to curing this plague that we have had for so long from our people so that one day we can prevent another mass shooting before it is too late.