GRASS VALLEY, Calif. — The power of social media shelved a school fundraiser in California scheduled for this Saturday. The entire uproar began, from all things, with a tweet from former FBI Director James Comey.
Wendy Willoughby and Kathy Dotson co-produce the annual Blue Marble Jubilee held at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. The event was supposed to raise about $25,000 for the Grass Valley Charter School but it was derailed by a wild online conspiracy.
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"So, in this instance, they believed this tweet by former FBI Firector James Comey was actually a secret message, and they needed to decode that message," said Willoughby. "Ugh. It's heart-breaking ... absolutely devastating."
Comey was taking part in the "five jobs I've had" hashtag. In the tweet, the first letters of the five jobs Comey listed were pulled out to spell G-V-C-S-F, which some took to mean the Grass Valley Charter School Foundation. And from there, some on social media quickly latched on to the upcoming jubilee and twisted it into a threat. "And felt that his secret message was telling his followers -- James Comey this is -- to target our festival and that something horrible was going to happen at our little, tiny-tiny festival in rural northern California," Willoughby told KTXL.
Even though that the information put out on social media was baseless, thousands upon thousands became engaged on several platforms and the Blue Marble Jubilee organizers felt it was just too much of a risk for the fundraiser to go on.
"Once it got out there, especially on Twitter, it spread like a wildfire," said Dotson. "These individuals are putting fear into our communities and I don't want to see this happen again to any event -- to a school or to another town."
"To have these folks twist that and make it as though they are the ones doing good? I wish there was a way we could show them that all they did was push out hate and fear and division and heartbreak," said Willoughby.
CNN/KTXL
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