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A fake video of anti-gun teen Emma González went viral on the far right, where Parkland teens are villains

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The image on the left is an isolated still from a doctored video of Emma Gonzalez, having been altered to depict her tearing up the US constitution. At right is an isolated image from the original Teen Vogue video that showed her tearing up a shooting target. Photos: Twitter / Teen Vogue

There has been a certain quality to having teenagers act as figureheads for a movement that has not gone unnoticed in the wake of the March for Our Lives gun-control rally in the US on Saturday.

Judge too harshly and you are attacking a kid who has balanced trauma with homework. And amplifying students such as Emma González has injected optimism among liberal activists in the grinding debate about the role of guns in society.

González, 18, has been at the flash point of this dynamic, appearing in newspapers, on magazine covers and in a prominent spot at the anchor rally in Washington, DC, where she went silent for the six long minutes it took a gunman at her high school in Parkland, Florida, to kill 17 people on Valentine’s Day.

Gun-control advocates have held up González as a figurehead of the movement, splashing her trademark shaved head on T-shirts and viral images.

Then, there is another viewpoint of her activism.

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