Do you have a link to this? I Googled the quote at the end and just found this weirdo tweeting under the hashtag #RealNiggas4Romney.
I remember(maybe mis-) some reddit comments at the time about the kid's smirk. There was also a buch of comments about "punchable face"
https://medium.com/@RevolutionaryId/twitter-democratizing-mo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2019_Lincoln_Memorial_...
>In the wake of the publication of the longer video, CNN Business reporter Donie O'Sullivan described the twitter video uploaded by "2020fight" as the one that "helped frame the news cycle" of the previous days, and characterized the video as a "deliberate attempt" to mislead and "manipulate the public conversation on Twitter"—a violation of Twitter rules.[76] According to Molly McKew, an information warfare researcher, the tweet had been boosted by a network of anonymous Twitter accounts to amplify the story.
To add to my point of 'OK': On January 22, shortly after tweeting it, comedian Kathy Griffin deleted a Twitter message in which she accused Covington basketball players making an OK gesture of "throwing up the new nazi sign".
heres one link. search term is covington kid.
basically just another case of left aligned news stations casually labelling everyone they don't like as 'racist'
Someone edited down a video of what happened and shared it. It was boosted either by bots or by unsuspecting people but it set off what can only be described as a witch hunt. This is of course not the first time this has happened, we have had things like Donglegate(https://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/03/donglegate-is-classic-...) and Shirtgate(https://time.com/3589392/comet-shirt-storm/). But the events seem to be getting bigger in magnitude, i.e. drawing in international media(https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46935701) and more numerous(sorry no stats, only my attention).
You can not run a society on mobs. I am not sure if it is Twitters design, the speed of information, the need to feel like part of the in group and/or a combination of all and more that is leading to the formation of mobs but it is not healthy.
I also think there is some cultural values at play as well, where the number of Twitter followers, being an influencer, or just being self centered is seen as a positive thing.
Part of me thinks that it might be related to the gamification of everything, if I post more more(of the right thing) I get more likes, followers, retweets by celebrity. Rather than if I post clear concise or well thought out things. Quality over quantity as it were.