'Catnip': Tech experts expose tricks used to ignite right-wing fury at protests

The ongoing protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles have prompted the usual stream of misinformation — some of it spreading from President Donald Trump's social media account — that's intended to inflame the situation, according to a report.

Misleading photos and videos have spread across social media suggesting that Democratic leaders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, are stoking violence and mayhem, and one post showing a pallet of bricks purportedly set out for protesters to toss was viewed more than 800,000 times, reported the New York Times.

“These days, it feels like every time there’s a protest, the old clickbaity ‘pallets of bricks’ hoax shows up right on cue,” wrote the Social Media Lab research center on Bluesky. “You know the one, photos or videos of bricks supposedly left out to encourage rioting. It’s catnip for right-wing agitators and grifters.”

The photo came from he website of a building materials wholesaler in Malaysia but was cited as proof that financier and conservative bogeyman George Soros was sponsoring disorder at the protests, the Times reported.

The online trope dates at least back to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and affirms the president's claims that the protests against his immigration policies are inauthentic.

"These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists. Remember, NO MASKS!" Trump raged over the weekend.

In a follow-up post, Trump simply stated, "Paid Insurrectionists!"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X that he was mobilizing 700 Marines to guard federal buildings, joining 2,000 National Guard troops the president deployed without authorization from the governor, who commands the state's guard, and social media accounts have spread misleading images purporting to show military service members clashing with the public – including one still shot from the 1983 action movie "Blue Thunder."

Conservatives are “building up the riots in a performative way” to support Trump's claims that Los Angeles had been overrun by “violent, insurrectionist mobs," said Darren L. Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, adding that the posts were also “a bit self-fulfilling.”

“As they direct attention to it,” Linvill said, “more protesters will show up.”

Some of the posts have been amplified from accounts linked to Russia, which has long accused Soros or the U.S. government of sponsoring efforts to overthrow governments worldwide, and media expert Nora Benavidez linked Kremlin misinformation campaigns to “a much longer effort to delegitimize peaceful resistance movements.”

“Information warfare is always a symptom of conflict, stoked often by those in power to fuel their own illiberal goals,” said Benavidez, senior counsel at the Free Press advocacy group. “It confuses audiences, scares people who might otherwise have empathy for the cause and divides us when we need solidarity most.”