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After the 2016 U.S. general election wound down, stories of a more dangerous United States began popping up on social media. According to one such story, gay Canadian film producer Chris Ball was badly beaten outside a bar in Santa Monica, California, by several Donald Trump supporters who had been emboldened by the vote's outcome. The web site USUncut reported on the claim and shared moderately graphic Facebook screenshots documenting the aftermath of the purported attack: According to that article, the incident took place on 8 November 2016, the night of the election. The next day, Facebook user K.C. MacPherson shared one of the images and wrote: Little information was provided about the circumstances leading up to the bar fight, although earlier reporting quoted Ball as saying the images made his injuries seem worse than they actually were: That account provided a version of events that was not so clearly partisan, with bar patrons engaging, as they sometimes do, in heated rhetoric. Ball said he left the establishment alone and claims he was jumped by a group of men, but not necessarily anyone who had followed him outside from the bar. It is possible that the men who purportedly attacked Chris Ball were Trump supporters emboldened by the candidate's win. However, Trump supporters might point to images captured just before the election as counter-evidence: On 10 November 2016, the Santa Monica Police Department published a post to their Facebook page casting further doubt on Ball's story: None of the reports we found about Chris Ball's altercation with purported Trump supporters mentioned a location, cited a police report, or any provided information substantiating his attackers' motives. The account could have been completely accurate, but the event it described also could have been a garden-variety bar fight that took place after what turned out to be an exceptionally tense night in the United States.
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