The conspiracy theory around one of the Florida school shooting survivors is getting even more insane

Screenshot/CNN

David Hogg.

• Conspiracy theorists keep targeting Florida high school shooting survivor David Hogg.
• Hogg has responded to the theorists.
• They've made a number of false claims about him.

Far-right conspiracy theorists are now targeting Florida school shooting survivor David Hogg with both a blatantly false attack involving a yearbook photo they claim proves he did not attend the high school and another false claim that he is actually a 26-year-old who was once arrested in South Carolina.

Hogg has become the target of a number of conspiracies spread by far-right outlets such as The Gateway Pundit and True Pundit, as well as through social media accounts. The conspiracies center on baseless claims that Hogg is an actor who is working in cahoots with the FBI, where his father is a retired agent.

Hogg, a student journalist who says he interviewed classmates during the shooting, has become one of the most prominent student voices, calling for stricter gun-control measures and characterizing the response of politicians - and specifically President Donald Trump - as "disgusting." He has been prominently featured as a guest on networks like CNN and CBS.

A Twitter user identified as "Laguna Beach Antifa" posted a yearbook photo of Hogg and fellow classmates late on Tuesday claiming that the yearbook was from Redondo Shores High School in California and that Hogg graduated the school in 2015. The post has been retweeted more than 4,000 times and has been replicated on other social media sites like Facebook. Last summer, Hogg was interviewed by a CBS Los Angeles affiliate about an altercation involving his friend and a lifeguard.

"David Hogg didn't attend #Parkland high school," Laguna Beach Antifa wrote. "I went to school with him at Redondo Shores High School in California and he graduated in 2015. Here he is in our yearbook from 2015. He always wanted to work for CNN and be an actor. #GunReformNow #NeverAgain"

The claim was quickly debunked. Twitter users pointed to the photo two above Hogg's featuring a student wearing an "Eagles" football t-shirt. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's mascot is the Eagles.

Hogg's classmates were quick to defend him.

Others promoted a conspiracy that Hogg is actually a 26-year-old who was one arrested in South Carolina. The photo of the David Hogg who was arrested in South Carolina, however, bears no resemblance to the Florida shooting survivor.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California took to Twitter to defend Hogg, who he said he knew before the Hogg family moved to Florida.

"THIS CONSPIRACY THEORY IS INSANE," he wrote. "Our kids know David Hogg. My wife and I know his mom, who taught at our kids' elementary school before they moved to Florida. Although David is very articulate, he is not a crisis actor. He is a student who lost 17 of his classmates to bullets."

The conspiracies first started to bubble up online after far-right outlets began pointing to his father's status as a retired FBI agent to suggest something nefarious in the student's frequent media appearances.

Pro-Trump accounts on social media have shared the stories on Twitter and in some cases have thousands of retweets. The far-right One America News Network promoted a tweet suggesting Hogg may be "running cover for his dad who works as an FBI agent at the Miami field office."

The stories gained more attention when Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., liked two tweets related to the conspiracies.

The conspiracies spilled into the ranks of government, too.

Benjamin Kelly, an aide to Republican Florida state Rep. Shawn Harrison, told the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday afternoon that both Hogg and a fellow student were "actors that travel to various crisis when they happen."

Kelly was fired later that day.

The prominence of the conspiracies led to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida publicly condemning those spreading the claims.

"Claiming some of the students on tv after #Parkland are actors is the work of a disgusting group of idiots with no sense of decency," he tweeted.

The Florida high school student was asked about the conspiracies during a Tuesday night interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, where he said the claims about him were "absolutely disturbing."

"I am not an actor in any way, shape, or form," he said. "I am the son of a former FBI agent and that is true. But as such, it is also true that I go to Stoneman Douglas High School and I was a witness to this. I am not a crisis actor. I am someone who had to witness this and had to live through this."

Meanwhile, an expansive network of Russian social media bots zeroed in on Hogg. Researchers at Hamilton 68, a joint venture between the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the German Marshall Fund that has closely tracked the automated Russian Twitter accounts, found Tuesday that "Hogg" was the top trending topic within the network it follows.