Viral attack on Walz features fake former student making false claim

Source: Washington Post

Investigations
Viral attack on Walz features fake former student making false claim
The real former student, a man who attended a school where Walz taught, told The Post that they never met. He said he was dismayed to see the video showing someone using his name to make the claims.

By Jon Swaine, Sarah Blaskey and Chris Dehghanpoor
October 21, 2024 at 10:47 a.m. EDT

Matthew Metro didn’t recognize the face that popped up on his cellphone screen when he clicked a link that a friend texted him last week. But after hitting play on the online video, he was dismayed by what he saw. ... “My name is Matthew Metro,” said the man in the video, who went on to describe life as a student decades ago at a high school in Minnesota where Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz was a teacher. Some of the details — including about being at the school when Walz worked there — matched the biography of the real Metro. But the man in the video went further, leveling fabricated allegations against Walz, who the real Metro said he never met.

Millions of people have viewed social media posts containing the video since it was published Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter. For some viewers, the use of Metro’s name and verifiable biographical details created an aura of credibility around the false allegations. Not so for the real Metro, whom The Washington Post located in Hilo, Hawaii.

“It’s obviously not me: The teeth are different, the hair is different, the eyes are different, the nose is different,” said Metro, 45, who has not previously spoken publicly. “I don’t know where they’re getting this from.” Metro showed The Post his Hawaii driver’s license to confirm his identity. ... Metro told The Post that Walz never taught him. He said he was irate that his name and biographical information were being used to bolster a lurid false accusation — and that he may be forever associated with it online. “It’s an invasion of my privacy and my personal life,” he said.

The four-minute video, published by a mysterious X account falsely using Metro’s name, is one of numerous outlandish smears against Walz and the other candidates that have flown around social media in recent days, in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. While X eventually added labels beneath the video indicating the content had been manipulated, multiple versions of the clip remain online. In all, posts featuring the video garnered at least 5 million views, according to engagement data the platform publishes.

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Daryl Lee in Hilo, Hawaii, and Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.


By Jon Swaine
Jon Swaine joined The Washington Post's investigative team in 2019. He previously worked as a senior reporter for The Guardian, and as a reporter and foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph.follow on X @jonswaine

By Sarah Blaskey
Sarah Blaskey is an investigative reporter on The Washington Post’s rapid-response investigations team.

By Chris Dehghanpoor
Chris Dehghanpoor is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post specializing in open-source research.follow on X @chrisd9r

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/10/21/tim-walz-matthew-metro-video/