Media Matters for America tweeted Wednesday afternoon that Fox News' Bill O'Reilly is "promoting a hoax" with his own tweet on the shooting in San Bernadino, but the Twitter account the left-wing media watchdog criticized is a fake.
An account under the name "Bill O'Reilly" originally sent out a tweet saying that one of the alleged shooters in Wednesday's deadly attack on a service center for disabled people in San Bernardino, California was confirmed to be a white supremacist named Sam Hyde.
Media Matters responded to the tweet 22 minutes later, saying that Bill O'Reilly was misleading the public and offered a link to debunk the "hoax."
The Bill O'Reilly account, however, is a fake and does not belong to the prominent Fox News commentator. It only has 97 followers, which would be a rather low number for the host of the highest rated news show on cable television. Moreover, the Twitter account is only following 19 people and has 17 likes.
Here is the Media Matters tweet:
This Bill O'Reilly tweet on San Bernadino is promoting a hoax. Debunked here: https://t.co/EjV9KGklLkhttps://t.co/zW9SZOWBDN
— Media Matters (@mmfa) December 2, 2015
And here is the original tweet from the fake Bill O'Reilly account:
BREAKING: One alleged shooter confirmed as white supremacist "Sam Hyde" others unconfirmed as of yet #SanBernadinopic.twitter.com/DSvVp82NLB
— Bill O'Reilly (@oreilIyfactor) December 2, 2015
These tweets come as local and federal authorities are investigating the Wednesday shooting in San Bernardino, where three gunmen stormed a service center for those with disabilities and killed at least 14 people and wounded at least 14 others before fleeing the scene.
As of this writing, police say that at least one suspect is dead. The identities of the shooters are unclear, as is their motive.