Twitter became a major vehicle for misinformation about unrest in D.C.

Misinformation about the extent of the unrest in Washington, D.C., and false claims about widespread communications outages burgeoned Monday on Twitter, making the #DCblackout hashtag into a nationwide trend on the platform.

Started by an account with just three followers, the hashtag exploded in popularity, generating about half a million tweets in its first nine hours after being created. The thread swelled with untrue claims that authorities had somehow blocked protesters from communicating from their smartphones to crack down on the unrest, which included looting and some fires.