Black Panther: Twitter bans trolls who claimed white cinema-goers were being attacked at screenings
Racist trolls are making false claims that white people are being attacked at screenings of the Marvel film Black Panther.
The first blockbuster superhero film with a black director and mostly black cast grossed a record-breaking $25.2m at the box office when it opened on Thursday night.
But the occasion was marred by trolls attempting to stir up hatred by using social media by falsely alleging that they had been attacked by black cinema-goers because they were white.
One troll, using a Twitter handle that declared them a Christian “hater of Sodomy”, showed a photo of a bloodied handkerchief and wrote: “Was at the Black Panther premiere but a group of black youths said this wasn’t for me.
“I am white. They then proceeded to assault me. I’m heading to the ER now.”
Other Twitter users quickly established that the claim was false and the photograph of the bloodied handkerchief had actually been taken nine years ago.
lies pic.twitter.com/XyWfzzJ4jR
— ⵕⵉⵎ ⴱⴰⵍⵍⴰⵄⵓⵉ (@moroccan_tea_) February 16, 2018
Another troll claimed: “I went to see Black Panther with my gf [girlfriend] and a black teenager shouted ‘U at the wrong theatre’ and smashed a bottle on her face’.”
Twitter user Joseph Muhatia (@trapafasa) and others quickly did a Google Reverse Image search to establish that the accompanying photograph originated from a news report about a 19-year-old who was hit with a glass bottle by a man who had tried to grope her in a Swedish nightclub.
Fake posts are being created to make black people look bad and the sad part of it is some people will believe them #BlackPanther pic.twitter.com/XzNMoxFmWs
— Trapa Fasa (@trapafasa) February 16, 2018
Another troll used both a fake photo and a fake name. They claimed to be Paul Nehlen, the white nationalist congressional candidate who has in fact been suspended from Twitter because of a tweet about Meghan Markle that led to him being accused of racism.
The troll showed a photo of a bruised woman with the caption: “Ohio woman hospitalised after racially-motivated attack at Black Panther screening”.
The image was actually from a 2013 Serbian publicity campaign against domestic violence, featuring models wearing make-up that made them look as if they had been punched.
This is a 2013 photo from Serbia about domestic violence. The model has make up on. Here’s another photo with the same model: pic.twitter.com/C37GD8aV3Y
— Gan Sharma (@brooklyn3r) February 16, 2018
As the trolls’ claims were swiftly debunked, Twitter suspended their accounts.
And some Twitter users started mocking the crude attempts at stirring up racial hatred, with images of the fictional character Glenn, from the TV series The Walking Dead, proving particularly popular.
My friend and I went to the #BlackPanther premier and he was brutally beaten for “not belonging there” by an angry group who did not have tickets. Very sad, night ruined pic.twitter.com/Con2bmU2Ag
— . (@WHIT3IV3RS0N_) February 16, 2018
This man was caught selling bootlegs of #BlackPanther outside of a theater and was severely beaten by a mob of African-Americans dressed in Chinese made dashikis pic.twitter.com/ZgQeO8IZx1
— I aim to be #1 (@8ntdatsumshit) February 16, 2018
A lot of people also continued to herald the film as a major moment in American cultural history.
Loch Logan Numetro last night after watching the movie #BlackPanther #WakandaForever pic.twitter.com/EP2yDtC1gR
— #LPConceptStore (@ShaxeKhumalo) February 17, 2018
Black Panther is out in UK and US cinemas now.