In the days immediately following the worst mass shooting in modern American history, in which 58 people were killed and 527 injured by automatic gunfire while listening to music at an outdoor festival on the Las Vegas Strip on 1 October 2017, disreputable web sites like YourNewsWire and NaturalNews.com immediately leapt at the ensuing chaos to push false conspiracy theories.
Police say that the shooting was perpetrated by Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old resident of Mesquite, Nevada, who opened fire with a modified weapon from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. According to their ongoing investigation, Paddock acted alone. These findings can be easily verified by listening to police radio traffic from the incident, in which officers say they hear gunfire coming from the 32nd floor of the hotel, identify Paddock’s room, then burst in, only to find him deceased inside with a large number of firearms.
However, that has not stopped web sites with a less than nodding acquaintance with journalistic integrity from latching on to the mass casualty incident while taking advantage of the chaos and confusion to push conspiracy theories and collect resulting ad revenue. For example, on 2 October 2017, YourNewsWire, a web site that regularly inserts itself into tragedies to push the anti-semitic New World Order conspiracy theory, reported:
