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On 22 May 2017, various conspiracy theories began to emerge on the Internet pushing narratives that a suicide bombing attack that killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England was either a hoax or a false flag — a mass tragedy staged by the government (or governments) to manipulate the public. One such widely-shared video was posted to YouTube the same day of the attack, and has since been viewed thousands of times. In it, a male narrator concludes that the attack was a hoax, because he takes at face value the words of an announcer who was trying to calm a panicked crowd at Manchester Arena by assuring them there was no need to run in the aftermath of the explosion. An archived copy of the conspiracy video can be viewed on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20170523181833/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vhw9zunZLk In footage from a camera phone taken inside the arena immediately after the bomb exploded, the announcer's voice can be heard urging calm. He says: The explanation for the announcer's verbiage is simple. After the explosion, footage from inside Manchester Arena shows panic, with people running for the building's exits. This is recipe for a stampede, and the announcer was trying to prevent that from happening — and may well have succeeded. After posting the video in which the announcement can be heard, the same Twitter user said people did slow down in order to listen to him: But the narrator of the conspiracy video took the announcer's words literally, saying that by directing people not to crowd and panic, he inadvertently revealed nothing had actually happened: The conspiracy video's narrator states his belief that the attack was staged as part of a series of fake tragedies to control the masses. This is demonstrably false. Greater Manchester Police confirmed that they have spoken to grieving families of the 22 deceased and that the coroner is performing postmortem examinations. Once this is complete, identities of the victims will be made public. Police are actively investigating the attack and have taken multiple people into custody. There is also ample footage taken by concert goers that shows everything from the moment the bomb exploded to people scrambling for safety. Authorities have identified the suicide bomber as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, a British citizen who had been on their radar for his extremist views. In an e-mail, Manchester police panned the suggestion the attack was a hoax. They told us: Another iteration of the conspiracy theory was posted by notorious fake news-generating web site, YourNewsWire. The post pushes the baseless false flag conspiracy that the British government knew about the attack beforehand and even practiced for it days earlier but did nothing to prevent it, as evidenced by a terror attack drill at Manchester mall days earlier: As evidence the article points to a year-old video from RT (formerly Russia Today, a Kremlin-funded television station) that depicts a drill conducted by police at Trafford Centre in Manchester the evening of 9 May 2016. But YourNewsWire either misread the year, or is deliberately misleading readers by claiming that the drill occurred less than two weeks before the 22 May 2017 suicide bombing attack at the concert: According to The Guardian, the 2016 drill was meant to mimic similar attacks in Paris and Brussels and included 800 volunteers. This is no surprise — the terror threat level in the United Kingdom has been severe since 2014, which means authorities believed an attack was highly likely. After the Manchester suicide bombing the level was raised to critical meaning an attack is imminent. Practicing for the likely event of a terrorist attack in a country that has been on alert for that very thing is hardly suspect. British authorities are actively investigating the Manchester attack and as of 24 May 2017 have taken seven people into custody as they work to head off further tragedies. There is no credible evidence supporting the claim the tragedy was a hoax or a false flag, and YourNewsWire has a long track record of promoting false information.
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