ALL HANDS --- We need to identify this man TODAY.

[L. Coyote]

95. Professor Misidentified On Twitter As A Racist

Last edited Sun Aug 20, 2017, 12:29 PM - Edit history (1)

Kyle Quinn Hid At A Friend's House After Being Misidentified On Twitter As A Racist
LISTEN -- August 17, 2017 -- Heard on All Things Considered -- Laura Sydell

Kyle Quinn, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Arkansas, was wrongly identified on social media as a participant in a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va.
Jennifer Mortensen

In the aftermath of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., many civil rights activists took to Twitter and shared photos of people who allegedly were at the march. The idea was to identify who they were and shame them. But identifying someone from a photo can be tricky — and the activists managed to make at least one mistake.

It was Saturday and Kyle Quinn and his wife were having a quiet afternoon at home: "I was sitting on the on the couch with my wife; I think we were watching Planet Earth II" — a nature documentary show — "and I got a phone call."

It was from the university relations office at the University of Arkansas, where Quinn works as a professor of biomedical engineering.

"They wanted to confirm where I was," he says. And then it got stranger. "They asked whether I'd heard about what was going on in Charlottesville. I told them I was vaguely familiar."

The school official told Quinn his weekend was "about to get a lot worse."

A counterprotester at the white supremacist march had posted a picture of a man with a beard and light brown hair, the same color as Quinn's, the school official said. The man was wearing a T-shirt that said "Arkansas Engineering." The official said someone on social media put Quinn's name to the picture. ................

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