YouTube deletes videos claiming Florida school shooting survivor is an actor

YouTube deleted a video that was trending on its site that accused a Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivor of being an actor, according to Fox News.

The video featured student David Hogg being interviewed on local news in California over the summer about a time a friend got into an argument with a lifeguard. It was titled, “David Hogg the actor.”

YouTube removed the video, saying “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s policy on harassment and bullying.”

YouTube responds to criticism

After the video spent several hours as the top trending video on YouTube, the company deleted the video and admitted it should not have appeared on its site.

“This video should never have appeared in Trending,” a YouTube statement to Variety read. “Because the video contained footage from an authoritative news source, our system misclassified it. As soon as we became aware of the video, we removed it from Trending and from YouTube for violating our policies. We are working to improve our systems moving forward.”

Conspiracy theories

The video in question isn’t the only one accusing Hogg of being an actor paid by gun control advocates, and YouTube has taken many of them down.

One user posted a video titled, “David Hogg Can’t Remember His Lines When Interviewed for Florida School shooting,” that was also removed.

Survivors of the shooting have been vocal since the tragedy, calling for lawmakers to enact stricter gun control laws for their safety.

The intense activism of the students has led some to speculate that the media is manipulating and exploiting the teenagers to further a political narrative.