2020 US Election: Endgame? Not yet.
November 7, 2020
All week I’ve been thinking about this article from respected researchers Shannon C. McGregor and Daniel Kreiss. They argued that “Americans Are Too Worried About Political Misinformation.” While there are lots of good points within, I kept mentally arguing back with it through the week.
They are absolutely 100% right that the problems we face here are not just one thing. We should be worried about polarisation and the alternate information realities people are living through. Much of this stems from deep roots in culture, identity, community and belonging. Partisan divisions are hardly a new thing.
And yet, the impact of misinformation is clearly on a scale like we’ve never seen before. We’ve never had a country with 2.7 billion people in it, as Facebook is. The instantaneous communication through, for example, memes allows dangerous proliferation of absolute falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
One of the points made in the piece is that there isn’t enough data-driven analysis to prove the impact of misinformation is as large as researchers might think. But these researchers have been crying out for more data and when a tool like Crowdtangle comes along offering them some, they bite at the chance. (And don’t forget that Crowdtangle has quite limited data.)
The problem of having enough data to prove the case is further complicated by privacy concerns, and the complete lack of any such data when it comes to closed platforms like WhatsApp. If we waited to do anything before we had definitive data, we’d never do anything.
Despite all these challenges, excellent researchers like Kate Starbird, Joan Donovan, Claire Wardle, Evelyn Douek, Cindy Otis, Renee DiResta, Molly McKew, Nina Jankowicz, Aoife Gallagher, Erin Gallagher, Melissa Ryan, to name but a few, (and plenty of men too!) have contributed significantly to our understanding over the previous few years. (There’s many many more I could name.)
Yes it is a “wicked problem”, but we have done lots of work to understand and diagnose it. That work must continue, but we need to radically scale up experiments around solutions too.
Final point on this, all week we saw the real world impact of the disinformation MAGA machine at work. Its real world impact was on democracy itself. And everything that unfolded was entirely predictable.
Sometimes the real world impact is one of us. Think about the election worker who is in hiding, terrified, because of a viral video which falsely accused him of throwing out ballots. His personal information was released and he became a target. This is not right. Next time it could be you or me.
Audio and Video as Misinformation Superspreaders
One of the big stories of the week was Steve Bannon. He was banned from Twitter and had his Spotify and YouTube episode taken down after saying that he would like to see Anthony Fauci and Christopher Wray beheaded.
Reporting around misinformation on podcasts and video is sorely lacking because it’s hard. We’ve been experimenting with our own tool at Kinzen and posted about some of the examples we uncovered this week.
Misinformation Miscellany
Most weeks I do a roundup here of narratives that spread in recent days (that’s why it’s called The Slow Social Media Newsletter). But this is no normal week. Nevertheless I will point you in the direction of Buzzfeed’s Jane Lytvynenko and Craig Silverman who kept a running list of all the false and misleading election information. It’s a sight to behold, a sight for sore eyes. As Jane said, “It’s actually pretty wild to compare the progression of false information from Election Day 1 to Election Day 4.” It really is. I don’t want to discuss Sharpiegate right now.
What happens next?
At time of writing, Biden’s victory is not declared but seems highly likely. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is planning to keep fighting, so this could go on for weeks.
I’m worried about the proliferation of “Stop The Steal” protests outside count centres and the presence of groups like AZ Patriots actually in election centres. Some people armed with guns have been present at these protests, and Alex Jones is showing up at some of them inflaming people’s passions and spouting ridiculous conspiracies and falsehoods. (Par for the course.) In one video he is shown goading the crowd, saying “if they want a fight, they better believe they got one… 1776 is the answer to 1984.”
Various Trump newsletters spouted dangerous phrases since election day like “defend the election”, “defend your nation”, “are you ready to FIGHT BACK?”, and “I’m asking my fiercest and most loyal defenders, like YOU, to FIGHT BACK!”
Donald Trump Jr. tweeted on Thursday evening that his father should “go to total war over this election.” MAGA groups shared this article from The Daily Caller which says that a gun store in Indiana sold more than 80,000 rounds of ammo within the first 30 minutes of opening. Snopes reported on conversations among MAGA Facebook groups which include phrases like “This is WAR. War is hell.” Buzzfeed reported that Facebook has internal metrics showing an increase in “violence and incitement trends.”
And then you start to see stuff like this:
Relatively new right-wing site Revolver argued that “The battle for America is on” and offered insights on what Republicans should do next. The article suggested holding rallies in contested states, a “Persuasion campaign and infowar to flip grassroots public opinion in Trump’s favor” and that “The tech companies must be shoved aside by force and by any means necessary.” The piece finished with: “American patriots everywhere need marching orders. Game on.”
In Philadelphia, local stations reported that police were investigating a possible plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center. NBC News reported that the two men arrested had QAnon paraphernalia and weaponry.
QAnon in Congress
At least two Republicans who support the dangerous and baseless conspiracy QAnon are headed to Congress: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.
And finally…
A video supposedly showing a Pornhub glitch on CNN is clearly faked. But it’s gone super viral with over 9 million views on Twitter.