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Old June 23rd, 2020 #110
Stewart Meadows
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Join Date: May 2018
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PROTEST PLOT? Conspiracy theories that George Soros ‘pays protesters, stashes bricks and owns Antifa’ surge following Floyd unrest


Samantha Lock
22 Jun 2020, 1:07

CONSPIRACY theories claiming that billionaire investor George Soros pays protesters, stashes bricks and owns Antifa have surged amid the nation-wide unrest following the death of George Floyd.

The theories argue he hires protesters, rents buses to transport them and has people stash piles of bricks to be hurled into glass storefronts or at police.
(...)
George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, has long been a target of conspiracy theories.

And now is being falsely accused of orchestrating and funding the protests over police killings of Black people that have roiled the United States.

Amplified by a growing number of people on the far right, including some Republican leaders, online posts about Soros have skyrocketed in recent weeks.

They have been accompanied by online ads bought by conservative groups that call on authorities to “investigate George Soros for funding domestic terrorism and his decades-long corruption.”

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Soros, 89, has donated billions of dollars of his personal wealth to liberal and anti-authoritarian causes around the world, making him a favored target among many on the right.

The Hungarian-American, who is Jewish, has also been the subject of anti-Semitic attacks and conspiracy theories for decades.
(...)
“I think partly it’s an attempt to distract from the real matters at hand — the pandemic, the protests or the Black Lives Matter movement,” Laura Silber, chief communications officer for Soros’ philanthropic Open Society Foundations, said of the theories. “It’s pretty demeaning to the people out there protesting when someone says they’re all paid. It’s insulting.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/119207...loyd-protests/