The events of January 6 have changed the content moderation space.

Even for those of us who who investigate misinformation, the past couple of weeks has been a whirlwind.

After The Great Deplatforming, we are left with more questions than ever before. There is the question of moderation up and down the tech stack, as Joan Donovan has been writing about for years.

There is the question as to whether this actually is unprecedented; platforms have taken actions like this outside the Anglosphere before, but it’s received way less attention. That is one of the many points Jillian C York made after compiling a list of everything pundits are getting wrong about this moment in platform moderation.

There is obviously the question of free speech and moderation itself. Now it seems that every platform hosting content, big or small, has to think carefully about and act on these discussions.

Finally there is the Great Migration of MAGA supporters to alternative platforms. This has become very tricky for disinformation investigations.

Since January 6 we’ve had a number of questions coming from clients asking for help on monitoring alternative platforms like Telegram, 8kun, Gab, Discord, etc.

Our response has been very deliberate. We want to be careful in thrusting people into these platforms where there is a real danger of them being identified, harassed and threatened.

Our primary advice is to reach out to experienced partners like Kinzen, First Draft, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, or any others in this space that you feel comfortable with.

If you are stepping into monitoring these platforms, please keep these rules in mind:

• Don’t use your real name, username or profile picture. Don’t post anything that could in any way lead to you or your family being identified.
• Don’t use your regular email address and password when accessing extremist platforms. Assume everything you do on sign up could be made public. Create a “throwaway” email address if needs be.
• Don’t reuse passwords across platforms. There is a chance you will be identified with this information.
• If at all possible, use a different phone number to your own. There are big privacy questions with some of these alternative platforms, and the last thing you need is neo-Nazis calling you up at the weekend. If that’s not possible, you can hide certain information on Telegram and other platforms.
• Consider using a VPN which helps with anonymity.
• Check out some self-doxing guides like this one from Access Now, this one from the Global Investigative Journalism Network and this one from The New York Times.
• Don’t engage in conversations with these extremist communities. You are stepping into a world of white supremacists, militia and terrorism.
• You might consider screenshotting material for posterity. Often, content is deleted by uploaders and you won’t be able to back up your points without evidence.
• Be careful believing everything you see. Alas, with less moderation and verification, there are plenty of fake accounts for prominent actors.
• Watch out for your mental health. Spending time with extremists in less moderated spaces will take a toll. Check out advice from the Dart Center.

Aside from security concerns, remember that a lot of the chatter in these closed networks is self-referential. It might take a lot of study before you “get” what is going on. Much of the conversation will be attempts at childish gags or contain lewd/violent imagery. Much of the content will require further verification before you can think about acting on the information you’ve seen.

Our job at Kinzen is to support moderators and researchers, and indeed any organisation at risk from disinformation. We’ve set up a daily briefing which helps navigate a rapidly evolving landscape. It covers the latest disinformation narratives and the key content that is promoted every day.

To get it, you can get in touch with us at partnerships@kinzen.com.

Staying Safe While Monitoring Extremist Groups on Fringe Platforms was originally published in Kinzen on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As 2020 draws to a close, I’m going to take some time out from this weekly missive. In reflecting back on the year in misinformation, the clear global frontrunner is of course COVID — everything from disputes about the origins of the virus, seeming cures for it, and the very existence of it. All have been part of what researchers call our information disorder.

In the last couple of months the US election took the primary focus of attention for many journalists and fact checkers. But in the last two weeks, with the positive news about vaccines, it’s clear that COVID misinformation is back with a vengeance (not that it ever really went away). More on that below.

But in thinking back on this weekly write-up, I wanted to consider solutions. This is a quick review and I’m surely missing some things (please write back if so), but let’s start here: misinformation is a “wicked problem”. There’s no one simple solution. It’s going to take many solutions implemented across various disciplines for us to make progress in moving from information disorder to something resembling information order.

I think we as researchers still have a job to do to paint a picture of what a digital, social media-fuelled version of such a world looks like, but there are some solutions being mooted.

In a recent article for Foreign Affairs, Nina Jankowicz offered the Biden administration some policy tips. She called for “new governmental structures and legislation.” Considering the threat seriously would mean creating “a counter-disinformation czar within the National Security Council and setting up a corresponding directorate” to respond to disinformation campaigns. Furthermore, there would need to be “a federal commission for online oversight and transparency,” as well as investment in digital literacy and public media. All of which makes sense.

The Forum on Information & Democracy offered 250 policy recommendations, many of which focus on transparency and the creation of a set of Human Rights Principles for Content Moderation based on international human rights law. Again, there’s a lot of sense in all this.

But I wonder if such suggestions are 1) functionally implementable (transparency may conflict with aspects of data privacy, for instance) or 2) likely at all (will platforms — and their shareholders — have an incentive to take on board these recommendations?). Regulation can take us far but legal documentation is likely to always be behind the innovation at the cutting edge of the tech industry.

Facebook is trying out a “Supreme Court” to help solve these issues. There’s lots of good thinking in here but again, this process will be long and arduous.

There may be other ways of looking to solve these problems: I’m looking at the likes of Ethan Zuckerman and Eli Pariser, who are focused on new types of digital public spaces. I’m inspired by Joan Donovan’s call for a development of librarianship for the internet.

Within the platforms themselves, there is a clear desire for AI solutions, with the idea that a fully automated approach to content moderation might be possible. But if anything, 2020 has shown that they will always need moderators.

That’s a key takeaway from these excellent slides by Amy X Zhang: “Get rid of the notion that you will be able to remove the need for humans to do this work”. This is a great presentation of the challenges platforms face and practical attempts that have been made so far.

Even as we build AI solutions, however, the role of a journalist is still paramount. Consider this great report from First Draft about how QAnon content endures on social media through code words. “The next frontier in QAnon moderation may require further investment in detecting QAnon-related images, videos and keywords.”

I’m betting, just as techies are often ahead of their legal colleagues, that journalists will often be ahead of their platform friends in understanding and researching this evolution of language and visual.

In reporting on the latest misinformation problems, journalists may be a thorn in the side of many a platform executive; another way of looking at it is they are performing a vital public service and are often ahead of the platform’s own understanding of the problematic content they host.

(Another incentive issue worries me here: we see Facebook get the most coverage for its problems and that’s largely because journalists use Crowdtangle. Similarly for Twitter and TweetDeck. There’s no similar tool for YouTube, for example, and so it gets less coverage, even as we all know that it has a big problem here. But why would YouTube create such a tool when it will only bring more scrutiny and the kind of stories we regularly see about Facebook? By keeping their head down, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has not been called before Congress like Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg in recent weeks. Kinzen has a beta of such a tool; read about it here.)

Kinzen is working on aspects of these solutions, and we’ve recently raised $2.2m, so watch this space for more in 2021.

Until then, I’ll finish with a brief round up of vaccine misinformation this week. Have a great end to 2020, let’s hope 2021 is better for all of us.

COVID Vaccine Propels More Misinformation

First Draft has published research on recent trends within COVID vaccine misinformation. To summarise, core narratives include:

• A Covid-19 vaccine is unnecessary; the immune system is superior
• “Big Pharma,” politicians and other key figures behind vaccines are driven by profit rather than public health concerns
• Corrupt media outlets serve as “mouthpieces for Big Pharma”
• Mandatory Covid-19 vaccines are tools to control populations
• Covid-19 vaccines are immoral: they are made from aborted fetuses

One of the COVID vaccine narratives to watch is a comparison with thalidomide. As AP finds, there are significant differences between how the COVID vaccine was developed and the drug thalidomide, rendering any such comparison redundant.

A common COVID vaccine misinformation narrative is that it will somehow change your DNA. Because of the recurring nature of these claims Full Fact has just provided another update showing that RNA vaccines do not alter DNA.

NBC News reports on how the anti-vaccine movement has been growing on Facebook.

With the recent vaccine news, there’s been a big increase in other COVID misinformation. For example, Politifact debunks claims on Facebook that wearing masks will kill people.

The conspiracy that COVID is entirely a hoax is so prevalent right now that multiple fact checkers are producing debunks on it at the same time. Here, the AP explores how an innocent selfie from a doctor led to such claims; here, Reuters reports on a Facebook video which features claims COVID is a scam and the vaccine will implant microchips; Politifact debunks a former Pfizer employee who said that the pandemic was effectively over in the UK; and FullFact debunked another Facebook video which featured claims that COVID is not contagious and is caused by radiation.

And so it ends, not with a bang, but with a Twitter rant.

And yet another bizarre press conference.

It seems this week was the slow dawning realisation for Trump and parts of his base that the time has come to move on.

White smoke finally appeared.

The transition has formally begun and, for the first time, Trump said he will step aside if the electoral college votes for Biden on December 14 (as it will). He refuses to concede, however, and continues to promote election conspiracies.

As mentioned last week, there is a huge spotlight on US elections, so my bigger fear is around how these tactics embolden authoritarian leaders elsewhere. Without the pressure of the world’s media attention, will anti-democratic forces in smaller countries take a leaf from Trump’s playbook and cause more damage? It’s certainly possible.

This week my colleague at Kinzen, Karolin Schwarz, analysed how already there are examples of the same mail-in ballot misinformation sweeping through Germany. Meanwhile Putin says he will not congratulate Biden as the results aren’t clear, and that the US can’t criticise electoral issues in other countries when it has so many problems of its own. Remember what we said last week: there is no evidence of a voter fraud operation. The election was free and fair.

More generally, NiemanReports has a piece on how journalists in Belarus, Jordan, Thailand, and Nicaragua are handling cries of “fake news”, often used to intimidate and threaten.

The base reacts

MAGA and QAnon supporters are torn this week. Some continue to believe this is all part of a grand plan on Trump’s part:

But for others, this is a moment of despair and outrage. TheDonald.win and Parler both show signs of distress at the election loss, but many of the top posts on the former still hold out hope for the Supreme Court and revelations of election fraud.

On Fox, Tucker Carlson moved toward accepting reality but he continues to promote scepticism about the result. He put this quote from his show on Parler: “On many levels, the system was rigged against one candidate, and in favor of another, and it was rigged in ways that were not hidden from view. We all saw it. The media openly colluded with the Democratic nominees.”

Georgia

Much of the focus of MAGA and QAnon this week was on Georgia.

It’s obviously strange that these stories had to be written but Lead Stories reported there is no evidence that dead people, children, or animals voted for Biden in Georgia. Reuters fact checked two of the latest theories based on viral videos: one here and another here show that ballots are not being shredded to destroy voter fraud evidence.

Then there was a campaign to #WriteInTrumpforGA, which suggests voters cast their ballots for Trump in January’s runoff elections for the Senate. The implication is that through this strategy Trump can still win the state of Georgia and prevail as the winner of the presidential race, but this is plainly not true. Some leftist accounts have encouraged Republicans to vote for Trump in the Senate, as it will benefit Democrats.

Sidney Powell

She was the MAGA/QAnon star of the week once again.

At the beginning of the week she had to react to the Trump campaign distancing itself from her, and her response was shared widely amongst MAGA supporters. In it she claimed to agree that she is not part of Trump’s legal team but that she is still working to prove election fraud. She also asked for donations.

A baseless theory, shared here and promoted fairly widely, claimed that Kraken “is a Department of Defense-run cyber warfare program that tracks and hacks various other systems to acquire evidence of nefarious actions by the deep state!President Trump and the loyal patriots in the Military and Space Command now have all the evidence of voter fraud and election related treason.” This led to the inventor and CEO of MyPillow saying Trump won over 400 electoral college votes.

Later in the week, Powell finally announced that “The Kraken is released” in Georgia and Michigan with her legal filings. (She also described herself as “Kraken Releaser.”) Much of this was based on already debunked claims.

In the QAnon community, there was some discussion over Powell’s authority as a military lawyer which will supposedly allow her to prosecute for treason. For them, it’s all part of the plan and Biden’s time is running out.

COVID Vaccine

Positive news on possible COVID vaccines in the last couple of weeks inevitably led to anti-vaccine activists trying to spread misinformation.

There was strong reaction from the anti-vaccine community to Qantas Airlines, whose (Irish) CEO said that proof of a COVID-19 vaccine will be mandatory for anyone flying with them. The #BoycottQantas hashtag was orchestrated as a result. News.com.au has a useful report on it.

A common narrative is that vaccines contain aborted fetal cells in their ingredients. That generic claim has now been made specific to the AstraZeneca vaccine, but as Full Fact found, it is not true.

AP debunked claims that Pfizer and Moderna skipped animal trials. Lead Stories debunked claims that the Pfizer vaccine contains lethal ingredients and nanoparticles that have never been used before in vaccines.

However legitimate concerns were raised by industry experts about the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The manufacturers were forced to admit a mistake in the reported dosage received by some study participants. Useful coverage is here and here. It now seems likely that there will be extra vaccine trials to clear up uncertainty about its efficacy.

In the Dock: Democracy

Let’s be clear. Joe Biden won the election. There are no “alternative facts”.

What we’re seeing from Trump and team is totally consistent with his previous behaviour. He is following a playbook that was entirely predictable.

What’s more worrying is how easily the GOP — the party of law and order — could fall. This week, the party promoted Sidney Powell’s baseless claim that “Trump won by a landslide.” What happens to the party when another leader with authoritarian leanings comes along, one who is politically smarter than Trump? What happens to democracy in America then?

Trump losing the election is not the end of this story.

The Global Impact

But this is not just about America. The impact of Trump’s actions on democracy are felt everywhere. He is exporting authoritarian tactics. Anti-democratic forces will be emboldened in places where there is much less of a spotlight.

This places a huge onus on platforms to work hard on their moderation processes outside of the English language. We’ve previously written about this problem at Kinzen: “there’s something deeply unsettling about the politics of one country dictating content moderation policies for the world.” See for example this important thread from Ali Abbas Ahmadi of First Draft comparing the US election with the state election in Bihar, India.

Within the confines of the US election, The Hill reports, there was a big variation in misinformation enforcement in English versus Spanish, with lots of gaps found in the latter.

Outside the US, Slate reported this week on how the countries where democracy is most fragile are “test subjects” for developing moderation policies. But perhaps there is some hope as outlined by Rest Of World, who found that Facebook recently set specific policies in Myanmar which had positive effects. (Of course the company has been accused of enabling hate speech that led to genocide there.)

Voter Fraud Conspiracies and That Press Conference

The big misinformation story of the week continues to be about a divided America. A new Monmouth poll found 77% of Trump supporters “say Biden’s win was due to fraud.”

Politifact has produced a roundup of voter fraud misinformation here.

The BBC has a good video report here.

The farcical nature of this moment is shown by the president retweeting an account that he thought was his sister’s but was fake. What times we live in.

Dominion, Smartmatic, Scytl, Venezuela, Frankfurt: all have become part of the swirling conspiracy narratives that have no basis in fact. Too many to list here. The zone is being flooded with shit.

Then there was that press conference. AP has a fact check on some of the key claims here. On TheDonald.Win the following morning, the top post claimed that the media was trying to distract from the true facts by focusing on Giuliani’s hair dye and slandering Sidney Powell.

Then in a Fox interview Powell said: “The entire election, frankly, in all the swing states should be overturned and the legislatures should make sure that the electors are selected for Trump.”

Even Tucker Carlson is having a hard time believing these voter fraud claims. On his show he said he asked Powell for evidence but that she couldn’t provide any. QAnon supporters were not happy with him.

Chris Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who Trump fired this week, has consistently stated there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. (Can we take a second to reflect on how unusual it is for the sitting president to fire this person in charge of election security because he didn’t like the facts he was promoting? We must not become normalised to Trump’s actions.) For Krebs, “That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest.”

Possibility of Election-Related Violence

The fallout from all this misinformation is an enraged Trump base who believe the election was stolen from them. So far we haven’t seen America devolve into violent chaos, but we must remain watchful.

Why?

Unicorn Riot reported on private chats amongst the militia group the Oath Keepers with evidence that explicit calls to violence are increasing. Some chilling quotes include: “Either we kill them or they kill us” and it is time “to start killing the news media live on air.”

Extremist reporter Nick Martin posted that Proud Boys are discussing The Day of the Rope, a white supremacist fantasy regarding mass lynching.

Media Matters reported on Infowars’s Owen Shroyer saying that Democrats and mainstream media “deserve” mass violence if Trump is not allowed to continue as president.

Fox 5 Atlanta reported on threats directed to officials and their families in Georgia. For eg, “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it” and “Your husband deserves to face a firing squad” and “The Raffenspergers should be put on trial for treason and face execution.”

Nick Fuentes has been leading the Groypers in election-related protests in Atlanta, Georgia since Wednesday. It culminates on Saturday. Other far-right groups are involved, including Stop The Steal organizer Ali Alexander and Alex Jones, and left groups are organising counter-protests for Saturday.

A caller to the Rush Limbaugh show said he is willing to die for Trump.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on a “Back The Blue” demonstration which was attended by some people armed with guns (see footage here). Scuffles broke out with counter-protesters.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager accused of killing two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin at Black Lives Matter protests, has been released on bail. A legal defence fund raised millions of dollars, allowing him to pay the bail of $2 million.

Congresswoman-elect and QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene is running a competition to win her AR-15 gun. She says the gun “TRIGGERED the Fake News Media”. The ad implores fans to “defend your family when BLM / Antifa terrorists show up at your door”.

Further details have come to light about the conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “Plan B” was outlined at trial, according to Local 4 WDIV Detroit: “The group wanted to storm the capitol with 200 men, “take hostages, execute tyrants and have it televised…” The plan they said would take roughly one week adding “no one is coming out alive.””

COVID Misinformation

Positive news on the COVID vaccine has led to plenty of misinformation. For example, AP fact checks false claims that lung tissue from an aborted fetus was used in the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

A Danish study questioning the efficacy of masks is being used by COVID conspiracy theorists. Note the lead researcher still promotes masks, and critics found problems with how the study was conducted.

The BBC reports on a French documentary which has been likened to Plandemic. Titled, “Hold Up”, the film promotes COVID misinformation.

The Daily Beast reports on how conspiracy theorists entered a Utah hospital with cameras to prove COVID is a hoax. The hospital had just lost a nurse to COVID.

The Great Reset

A video of Justin Trudeau talking about the potential for a reshaping of economic systems to address poverty and climate change has over four million views on Twitter because it got picked up by conspiracists afraid of “The Great Reset.”

The theory, which has similarities to classic QAnon commentary, alleges that an elite group will use COVID as an opportunity to enforce restrictions on the entire population for eternity and bring in a New World Order. Some variations say that COVID was entirely manufactured for this purpose.

If you wanted to do this, why would you advertise it, as the World Economic Forum has, so openly? The idea the WEF is promoting is of a more sustainable global economy after the pandemic has lifted.

Gareth Icke, son of conspiracy theorist David Icke, posted an article outlining more details, according to CapX. Apparently, the Great Reset “is a global agenda to monitor and control the world through global surveillance. You’ll be tied to it through an electronic ID linked to your bank account and health records and a social credit ID that will end up dictating every facet of your life.”

It’s not just the conspiracy wing of the internet picking it up. Mainstream media is too. Tucker Carlson tapped into the narrative around The Great Reset on his show, pointing out the Justin Trudeau video. He painted the following picture about what the world will look like with this reset: “The people in charge doing whatever they want because they’re in charge. There will be no live music in the Great Reset. Choirs will be illegal unless they are singing the praises of Kamala Harris. Christmas will be banned.” Russian outlet RT also used Trudeau comments to wade into the discussion. A Sky News Australia video saying this is part of a “great deception” also gained traction.

Canadian Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre started a petition to Stop The Great Reset and it already has over 80,000 signatures.

The Reasonability of Misinformation

That’s the title of an insightful piece by Nikki Usher about “well-made arguments with bad facts.” For the people who believe misinformation, it is shrouded in an aura of believability that functions within their prevailing worldview. Usher writes, “Remember that the people paying attention to politics are deeply engaged. They consider themselves informed even if they are paying attention to false information.”

Lots of great thoughts in here.

Until next time,

Shane

It’s 11 days since the election took place and even though the aftermath is still playing out, it’s a good time to stop and reflect.

This newsletter is intended to take a slow approach — that’s why it’s weekly not daily — and look back on all the minutiae and, rather than regurgitate it all, synthesise it.

The problem with the misinformation beat is that it’s so fast, there are so many things happening, and it’s easy to get lost in the maelstrom.

Taking a slower approach means that reflection can yield more perspective on what happened “this week in misinformation” without losing sight of the big picture.

Doing all this is useful for me, and I’m eager to hear feedback from you on what works and what doesn’t. How can it be more useful for you? What would you like to see?

Clearly the US election has been the big focus for the last number of weeks but I am eager to draw on “the rest of the world” in future. Too much focus is put on the American situation and there’s a danger we build solutions to misinformation for that specific use case. Just look at how the major platforms (not including YouTube) stepped up in recent weeks. Are they likely to repeat that for more elections around the world, or for other issues?

Million MAGA March

I’ll be watching out for what happens at the pro-Trump rallies in DC this weekend. Unfortunately, the fears around election-related violence are real.

Media Matters, a progressive watchdog, reports that “Militia leader Stewart Rhodes says he has men stationed outside of DC ready to engage in violence on Trump’s order.” Rhodes is part of the Oath Keepers militia.

Megan Squire reported that Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino said on Telegram that he “got Boogaloo shit to do.” (Boogaloo being a reference to a second Civil War.)

A man was arrested after vowing to “blow up” the FBI. He was a member of a well-known militia forum and had threatened to kill Democrats in the aftermath of the election.

And remember last week we included the NBC report into how two QAnon supporters were arrested on suspicion of a plot to attack the Philadelphia convention center.

Trump promoted a video from actor Jon Voight in which the latter declares the “battle” is the biggest since the Civil War. He says it is a battle of “righteousness versus Satan” and that “we must fight this corruption that has taken over.” The video has over 2.9 million views on Twitter.

Reuters reported that “thousands” of Facebook groups were littered with calls for violence ahead of the election.

Voter Fraud Conspiracies

This week, The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a statement which said “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” The New York Times reported that they called election officials in every state and found no evidence of voter fraud.

Nevertheless, the conspiracies continue to emerge. Dead voters, irregularities with poll watchers, mail-in-ballots — they’ve all been central to the core message coming from the hardline MAGA community but official observers have found no widespread evidence of wrongdoing.

The top video posted to Bitchute over the past week is based on the hammer and scorecard theory, which alleges that a supercomputer (Hammer) and a software program (Scorecard) were used to alter vote counts. Snopes debunks that here.

Another one was MaidenGate. This claim is based on the idea that there was a deliberate voter fraud strategy to use women’s maiden names for extra votes. I spoke to AP about this for their debunk, which you can check out here.

Another one to note is Benford’s Law, which MAGA supporters claim is a mathematical rule proving electoral fraud. Reuters has debunked this.

But by far the biggest theory — “superspread” by Trump but fostered amongst conspiracy communities in the first place — is around the Dominion Voting System. AP reports that it was falsely linked to the Clinton Foundation, and Politifact reports similarly for Nancy Pelosi. Politifact and Lead Stories offered more fact checks on this later in the week. But it’s still gaining traction.

The Two Americas — The Two Internets

Much of the ire of Trump supporters is directed at mainstream platforms and Fox News, with images like this one circulating:

They have been moving to apps like Parler in droves and so the possibility of two American internets is emerging: one mainstream with content moderation (Facebook, Twitter, etc), and one absolutist around free speech but which is mainly dominated by the far-right (Parler, Gab, Rumble, MeWe, Bitchute).

Digital Soldiers Get To Work

A common refrain amongst QAnon supporters is that they are “digital soldiers” and we saw some fascinating examples of their collaborative efforts this week.

On TheDonald.win, users coordinated a kind of citizen investigation with calls to gather videos of the TV networks on election night and upload them to a secure server. This would enable a seemingly forensic examination “to prove hammer and scorecard took votes away from trump [sic] and gave them to Biden.”

A similar initiative is called Digital Soldiers USA and will give those who register a playbook for daily efforts to “help us get President Donald Trump re-elected.” This is an example of the strategy delivered to the “digital army”: “We implement our mission via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by posting a daily message into the “comment sections” of each specific target. By using the comments sections, we avoid getting censored by these social media platforms.”

QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene promoted a petition called “Stop the Biden Steal.”

Pfizer COVID Vaccine

As The Daily Beast reported, reaction to the Pfizer announcement was fierce amongst anti-vaccine activists. It is clear that the biggest 2021 misinformation narrative will be this.

Helpfully, First Draft has published research into Covid-19 vaccine misinformation narratives. Let me finish by quoting extensively from their summary:

“Narratives challenging the safety of vaccines have been perennial players in the online vaccine debate. Yet this research shows that narratives related to mistrust in the intentions of institutions and key figures surrounding vaccines are now driving as much of the online conversation and vaccine skepticism as safety concerns. This issue is compounded by the complexities and vulnerabilities of this information ecosystem. It is full of “data deficits” — situations where demand for information about a topic is high, but the supply of credible information is low — that are being exploited by bad actors. These data deficits complicate efforts to accurately make sense of the development of a Covid-19 vaccine and vaccines more generally. When people can’t easily access reliable information around vaccines and when mistrust in actors and institutions related to vaccines is high, misinformation narratives rush in to fill the vacuum. The findings should act as a wake-up call as the world waits for a Covid-19 vaccine and sees routine immunization rates drop.”

Until next time

Shane

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.

It’s the last few days of a long campaign…

But even if, as seems to be the case, we are in for a Biden victory, this will not hasten the end of a deeply worrying turn. The volume and virality of misinformation — perhaps most infamously exemplified in 2020 by the rise of QAnon — is here to stay, even if Trump peacefully leaves office.

The infrastructure is available and the playbook is well-known. No doubt disinformation targeting minorities including women and Black people will continue — just ask Kamala Harris. Strategies will mutate and evolve and adapt as new policies are formulated. Critical in fighting all this will be media literacy, ongoing education, friction, slowing things down, and a slew of other measures that I might outline another time.

But surely a big part of it has to be a scalable solution to countering the threat of deceptive, coordinated campaigns. That’s why I’m excited to be exploring such solutions with Kinzen.

(Side note: you should check out some of our recent blog posts if you want to learn more about what we do. I wrote on the LSE Journalism AI blog about the role of journalists in this new age of “algotorial”, as Daniel Ek of Spotify puts it; that is, the convergence of editorial and algorithms. And Kinzen CEO Mark Little posted twice this week: one on the problem with how we are developing content moderation solutions right now, and another on some of the exciting possibilities we are exploring which are part of the many solutions we need to fix the information crisis. If you want to keep up to date, sign up to our weekly newsletter at kinzen.com.)

So this week instead of going about the usual roundup of emerging narratives and platform reactions, I thought for this edition — the last one before November 3 — we could take a step back and reflect on the wider trends we’ve seen this year. (This is supposed to be the slow social media newsletter after all.)

I will do so, however, with a little bit of curation from articles published in the last week as per usual.

The call is from inside the house

One clear development since 2016 is that domestic disinformation appears to be a much bigger threat than meddling by foreign powers. In fact, the US is so polarised now that many reports have indicated how foreign operators don’t have to create or concoct; they can simply push and prod at the cleavages in American society that are so regularly exposed by domestic bad actors.

This is not to say they have gone away you know. The Russians, Chinese and Iranians have all been accused of election interference, but the scale of what’s happening domestically, and from inside the White House itself, is on another level.

As my former colleague Claire Wardle wrote this week, “The fissure between left and right, between the religious and atheists, between the coastal elites and those who live in the “flyover states” emerged decades ago, and the canyon continues to widen today at an ever-faster rate. Foreign actors can do whatever they want to speed things along, but there’s little they can do that America isn’t already doing to itself.”

The integrity of the election is called into question months out from voting

For the last few weeks this roundup has focused a lot on ballot misinformation. I expect that to continue in overdrive in the coming weeks unless there is a landslide victory one way or the other.

This week, The New York Times reported on how a “tsunami” of misinformation is overwhelming election officials. Let’s hope we’re not in for weeks of discussions about hanging chads and the like.

Monitoring multiple languages

One big worry, particularly as it relates to the key state of Florida, is the spread of misinformation in Spanish. We’ve seen reports on this quite a bit in recent days and weeks, but I fear the dominance of English means there’s a lot more happening that hasn’t yet been uncovered.

With COVID, it became clear throughout 2020 that a multi-language approach is crucial in combatting misinformation. Examples abound of the same voice note re armies on the streets jumping from one country to another as lockdowns swept most of the world.

(In Kinzen I’m privileged to learn from editorial colleagues who are experts in misinformation in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Arabic and Russian.)

Your text messages are a battleground

Hardly a new trend but one that is incredibly difficult to understand because of the nature of the medium. Text messaging and networks like WhatsApp continue to be problematic. Part of the danger here is that a text message is where we are psychologically vulnerable: maybe we’ve grown accustomed to not trusting everything we see on social media but a text message delivered straight to our phones?

On Thursday, I noted two stories that offered insights in this regard. Reuters reported that volunteer moderators are looking for misinformation about Biden on WhatsApp targeting Indian-Americans. And The Washington Post reported that, as the election draws nearer, there is a surge of misinformation in texts and over email. Earlier in the week, Protocol and The New York Times reported on the proliferation of disinformation campaigns through text messaging.

Watch out for the armchair election analysts

In so many ways, we often forget how the democratisation of information enabled by the internet and social platforms can be a really great thing, but it creates new weaknesses even as it builds strengths. That’s why this NBC News report is fascinating on how an architect in Brooklyn has a massive responsibility to make sure his unofficial Twitter account, with over 200,000 followers, is extremely cautious in calling the election. Despite all the potential for an innocent mistake and unseen consequences, he plans to go ahead and make the call.

The growing confidence of militias

It seems every day there is a new report about the disturbing rise of militia groups. Consider the plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Nevertheless, I am hoping we look back on this note in the weeks, months and years to come and find that I was wrong to put a spotlight on this potential problem. Sadly, there is a real chance that “election observers” armed with guns intimidate election officials, further complicating an already complicated count with so many millions of postal ballots. How could various militia groups across the country — emboldened by Trump’s dog whistles — impact this election? What will they do if they don’t like the result?

This week, OneZero reported on how far-right militias are preparing for the election on alternative platforms such as Zello, MeWe, Parler, Gab, and Rocket.Chat, “stoking fear about post-election unrest, encouraging their compatriots to prepare for uprisings in major cities.”

The Daily Beast reported on leaked Boogaloo chats which reveal fantasies about killing random civilians and support for law enforcement.

But his emails

First off, as always, you should go and read Zeynep Tufekci on the Hunter Biden story.

It seems at this point that the supposed controversy simply didn’t stick in the way that the Hillary Clinton one did. I will gladly argue as to the reasons why with you over a pint when this pandemic is over, but two stories on this really stood out this week.

First, NBC News reported that “a fake persona laid the groundwork” for the whole thing. The story identifies Martin Aspen, the author of a fake intelligence document about Biden, as a fabricated identity.

Second, the AP reported after digging in on the whole controversy, finding that “Even if the emails in the Post are legitimate, they do not validate claims that Biden’s actions were influenced by his son’s business dealings.”

Finally, what can we expect?

I strongly suggest that if you are thinking about the impact of misinformation on election night or trying to get ahead of it in the days to come, check out this excellent report from the Election Integrity Partnership. It is the culmination of research from experts in the field including Kate Starbird, Michael Caulfield, Renee DiResta, Jevin West, Emma Spiro, Nicole Buckley, Rachel Moran, and Morgan Wack. Grab a cuppa first though, it’s a long read. And take a deep breath.

As Nina Jankowicz wrote this week, the ultimate victim of disinformation is democracy. Let’s hope it’s not bloodied and wounded on Tuesday night.

Talk to you next week.

There is only one more full week of this unusual election to go. What I keep thinking is: maybe this is not unusual anymore? Maybe most elections around the world are going to have outrageous claims, bizarre behaviour and the insidious spread of false information barely disguised at all as a political weapon.

We shall see. Let’s dig in.

The Biden Emails

Many journalists are treating this as a non-story. Since the New York Post “revealed” potentially incriminating information about Hunter and Joe Biden, it’s been covered extensively in right-wing media and fora. Much less so in the mainstream media. Perhaps for the casual reader it’s all a bit messy and murky and difficult to understand (like some of the Trump-Russia details). For journalistic organisations, it’s difficult to verify the authenticity of the emails, and the sourcing and background to the whole thing are sketchy at best.

We covered some of that last week. This week in the alternate reality that is MAGAworld, disgusting insinuations of child pornography and abuse were aired by Rudy Giuliani, egged on by Steve Bannon, and them fomented through conspiracy groups, anti-elite fora, and right-wing sites.

See for example this tweet with over 35,000 retweets and over 52,000 likes:

It’s nearly a week later and there’s still not a shred of evidence whatsoever to back up these claims. With just days to go to the election, there is clear political disinformation at work. Of course, discussions of this theory were spread on Fox News having been earlier fomented by Revolver and The Gateway Pundit.

At NBC News, there is an excellent report on the development of the Pizzagate-style campaign to attack Hunter Biden, if you want to go down the rabbit hole here.

What is the result of all this? YouGov reports that “half of Trump’s supporters think top Democrats are involved in child sex-trafficking.”

Let that sink in. Where is the evidence for such beliefs?

Meanwhile The New York Times reported that the New York Post story was written by a veteran at the paper who refused to put his byline on it; another journalist only learned her byline was on the story after it was published. We learned that the FBI is investigating whether the Biden emails are part of a foreign disinformation campaign. And Politico reported that more than 50 former intelligence officers signed a letter outlining their belief that the emails are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

A related narrative that has been a big feature of the Biden attacks is his relationship with China. Politifact has a report investigating such claims and finds: “The granular details of many of the allegations about Hunter Biden’s dealings in China are supported by documentation, but larger conclusions resurrected at the end of the 2020 campaign are unsubstantiated. Foreign policy experts say these allegations do not add up to a picture of Joe Biden being corrupt or pursuing policies contrary to the national interest. There is no evidence that Hunter Biden came close to breaking the law, much less any evidence that his father has done so.”

The biggest YouTube video shared amongst QAnon Facebook groups on Friday featured more claims of damning evidence of corruption against Hunter and Joe Biden. However The Wall Street Journal reported that corporate records reviewed by them indicate no involvement by the presidential candidate. And a Fox News reporter found the same:

Nevertheless, the phrase and hashtag #BeijingBiden continues to be used amongst QAnon groups.

Election Integrity, Misinformation, and Possible Violence

Ballot misinformation continues to spread. There is a big concern amongst election observers that with the integrity of the election called into question, and Trump’s clear dog whistles to violent forces in American society, things could turn ugly in the aftermath of November 3.

One of the bigger examples came earlier in the week when The Geller Report claimed that “Pennsylvania rejects 372,000 mail-in ballots” — but the rejections were of ballot applications, not actual ballots. Most were rejected because they were duplicates. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s Twitter account was locked after he promoted the story.

The Election Integrity Partnership reported on a viral video alleging electoral fraud in Germantown, Maryland which has already been debunked but continues to gain traction.

Later in the week, an insight to the possibility of violence becoming real. WBTV reported that a man was arrested in Kannapolis, NC with a van full of guns and explosives. He had allegedly researched killing Joe Biden.

ACLED and MilitiaWatch reported that the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois and Three Percenters are at a high risk of committing violence. Geographically, the highest areas of risk for militia-related violence are Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Oregon.

Of course, there’s already been violence committed by some of these groups. In Minnesota, the Star Tribune reported that one of the Boogaloo Bois was charged with opening fire on a Minneapolis police precinct during protests over George Floyd.

The combination of violent groups and election integrity seemed to come together in one big story midweek. There were reports of threatening emails being sent to Democrat voters in Florida and Alaska. The emails purported to be from the Proud Boys — who denied any involvement — and suggested that the reader vote for Trump “or we will come after you”. Later in the week, US officials said that Iran was behind the threatening emails.

Actor James Woods posted about a similar threat that was directed to Trump supporters although the authenticity of this is in question.

Misinformation Miscellany

Claims of censorship and attacks on “Big Tech” have been a prominent feature of discourse in MAGAworld in recent weeks and months. Two new stories this week claimed that Facebook and Google are rife with corrupt practices. The New York Post reported that some Facebook employees are “ashamed” of the company’s approach to moderating the Biden emails controversy. The other big story in relation to this is from Project Veritas, a very questionable source. The related video, which at time of writing has over 2.4 million views on Twitter, claims that Google is skewing search results in favor of Joe Biden. The video stars whistleblower Ritesh Lakhkar, who is allegedly a Technical Program Manager at Google. The story is in text format here.

Anti-vaccine activists are sharing claims that if Biden becomes president he will shut down the country until everyone has taken a mandatory COVID-19 vaccine. Lead Stories reports he has not said this.

Dr Scott Atlas, Trump’s COVID advisor, undermined the importance of masks in a tweet, which was then removed by Twitter.

The US charged six Russian hackers with various cyberattacks.

The New York Times reported on false political news in Spanish in the run up to the November 3 election. This could impact a key state like Florida.

Fact checks covering all the claims made from the final debate are available from AP, Politifact and CNN, to name a few.

We’ve focused mostly on domestic disinformation but US officials say that “Russia’s hackers appeared to be preparing to sow chaos amid any uncertainty around election results”, according to The New York Times. While Russia appears to be a bigger threat, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and FBI reported on how Iran is intent on influencing the election too.

There have been claims that Trump’s Twitter account was hacked. Both the White House and Twitter have denied this.

There’s only one more full week of this election to go. Until next time…

Take a breath, because that was another batshit crazy week in a batshit crazy election. As I look back on my notes from Monday, I’m struck by how long ago all that stuff feels.

The election is just 17 days away. Misinformation is really finding its moment, but sadly truth is struggling. I wonder how we’ll look back on the content in this newsletter in the months and years to come? Growing up, I never thought enough time was being devoted to the substantive issues that affect people as a result of elections, and to read all the inaccuracies and misleading claims below, we seem further than ever from actually discussing the real issues that will affect the American people (and same goes for lots of other countries). Maybe this is a darker view than the reality because I am so close to it all, or maybe it’s… actual reality.

As always, I’m trying to synthesise the many different things happening at a noisy time and make some sense of it all in one place. This is very much a learning process so feel free to send me your thoughts on what you need to see more or less of, what works, what doesn’t, etc.

Hacked emails redux

I wonder if “but his emails” will become a thing? Maybe not so much. Biden has Twitter and Facebook to thank for that, and maybe being a man helps.

There’s been a flurry of excitement since The New York Post reported that a “smoking-gun email” reveals that Hunter Biden introduced a Ukrainian businessman to Joe Biden, Vice President at the time.

But there are some big questions as to the veracity of the source of this story and whether the emails are in fact authentic. Still plenty of digging being done by journalists into all this.

As always, it’s important to consider the source. The person who seems to be behind a lot of this gave a rather bizarre interview to the Daily Beast; he certainly appears to have some problems.

But very quickly the “meta-story” became the bigger story. When Facebook and Twitter acted to deliberately slow down the spread of this story, outrage followed. Many misinformation researchers have been demanding more quick and bold decisions from platforms, but this move didn’t satisfy anyone — in particular Twitter, as they temporarily blocked people from being able to post the link.

Cue shitshow.

As an example, many of the top threads on Reddit/r/conspiracy have been referencing what they believe is evidence of censorship by Big Tech when there’s a story hurting a liberal candidate:

The Twitter account of the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, was locked because she had posted the New York Post story.

Cue more outrage and days of talking points.

Later, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said the company’s communication around their actions with the NYP story was “not great”. Now, they are allowing posts about the article again. But the whole thing has been an utter mess.

Later a satirical site, the Babylon Bee, produced a spoof story claiming that Twitter deliberately had an outage to slow the spread of anti-Biden news. This is a joke site — like The Onion or Waterford Whispers for my Irish readers. But, you guessed, Trump retweeted it as if it was real. A lot of people need a long course in media literacy, and the US President should be top of the list.

Back to the original story and the amateur online detectives are digging in; one such example that is being talked about in QAnon circles is that there is incriminating evidence on Hunter Biden’s computer regarding child pornography. Of course, no evidence to that effect has come to light.

Batshit crazy

It may feel like years ago now but let’s remember that during the week Trump promoted a theory that Obama ordered the killing of dozens of his own troops (Seal Team 6) and paid a bribe to Iran to cover it up. The theory also alleges that the US did not kill Osama bin Laden but rather a body double.

Misinformation Miscellany

Last weekend, a tweet from Jon Cooper went viral which claimed that Trump was preparing to resign. The tweet has been removed. Cooper has a history of spreading misinformation.

Trump claimed he is “immune” to COVID-19. Twitter placed a warning label on the tweet. There is no evidence that people are immune after being infected, and there have been cases where people have been reinfected.

Anthony Fauci appeared to support Trump in a campaign ad but the physician said that his comments were taken out of context, as reported by CNN.

For a number of days, anti-vaccine activists and COVID deniers have been sharing a petition called The Great Barrington Declaration. It is essentially an argument for a herd immunity strategy with misleading statistics. Lots of fake names are on the signatory list, as well as people who are not experts in COVID-19. Last weekend the Team (Herman) Cain account posted about it to over 500,000 followers. Cain died of COVID-19 earlier this year.

Ballot misinformation is still a huge deal. Almost every day there is a new viral video alleging some impropriety. But don’t forget that this week the California Republican Party set up unauthorized drop-boxes for mail-in ballots, which is illegal. More details from Snopes here. PragerU posted a video to YouTube titled “How to Steal an Election: Mail-In Ballots.” It has over 650,000 views since being uploaded less than 24 hours ago. I continue to see lots of speculation about “civil war” as a result of neither side believing in the outcome of the election, which is deeply worrying.

The Washington Post reported that an investigation into whether the Obama administration improperly redacted names in intelligence reports for political reasons has found no wrongdoing. This issue of “unmasking” has been one of the Trump/QAnon areas of interest as they alleged it was part of a campaign against Michael Flynn.

In place of a debate, both candidates held town halls. At his event, Trump refused to condemn QAnon, claiming not to know much about the movement, and then seeming to offer praise by saying it is strongly against pedophlia. AP and Politifact have fact checks of the town halls, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Other Platform Developments

Facebook announced a ban on ads that discourage people from getting a vaccine.

Reuters reported that Twitter suspended a number of accounts claiming to be Black Trump supporters for spam and manipulation.

YouTube announced it will “prohibit content that targets an individual or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify real-world violence.” They specifically referenced QAnon and Pizzagate.

Reuters reported that YouTube has banned misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.

Bloomberg reported that Twitter will now remove posts that deny the Jewish Holocaust.

Trump’s Health

There is continuing uncertainty over Trump’s health and in a void of official and trustworthy information, misinformation spreads. Journalists haven’t heard from Trump’s doctors since Monday. He hasn’t appeared before the White House press corps. But he has been firing on all cylinders with pre-recorded videos, tweets, and appearances on friendly forums like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

Theories about his health dominated online conversations early in the week. Buzzfeed has a running list here of all the false and misleading information about Trump’s diagnosis. This includes some of the following: Trump was wearing a portable oxygen concentrator when walking to the presidential helicopter; the Trump campaign tried to use the diagnosis to fundraise $421 million; Biden tested positive for COVID and only after did Trump. Buzzfeed also reports that theories abound over whether Trump was standing in front of a green screen for one of his videos. Not likely.

Note these conspiracies are largely being led by the anti-Trump “liberal” side. The hashtag #TrumpCovidHoax was trending for a time and includes conspiracies that Trump is faking his COVID diagnosis for political gain. Some theories postulate that there has been a Trump body double on display for the cameras in recent days.

Again, not likely.

But let’s not forget that Alex Jones claimed that “Evidence is mounting that he’s being deliberately killed at Walter Reed Military Hospital” — I think we can put that one to bed now.

Other conspiracies swirl over how Trump contracted the virus. One example that has gained traction is that Trump’s podium at the debate was sprayed with something. A video showing a man wearing gloves with a spray has circulated, with over 300,000 views on Twitter.

Project Lincoln, a PAC formed by some Republicans to oppose Trump, released a video parodying Trump’s promotion of Regeneron. It already has 4.7 million views. But on the pro-Trump forum TheDonald.win, a thread about it showed… they seemed to like it. This is not the first time Trump has promoted a treatment for COVID-19 which has yet to win majority support from scientists.

Sadly, Trump’s health has led to the revival of the hydroxychloroquine debate, with hashtags like #HCQWORKS popping up frequently on social platforms. Some politicians are promoting this too; Arizona Republican Andy Biggs is just one example.

Ballot Misinformation

Pretty much every day now it seems that there is another viral video alleging electoral fraud in relation to mail-in ballots. Experts say such fraud is likely to be a tiny sample of actual votes, but it’s become a wedge issue for Trump and supporters.

Just one example: Politifact debunked a video which allegedly showed “shredded” ballot applications for Trump: “The printer of this particular mailer said the video shows print production waste, not shredded applications.” Be careful with what you see on social media.

As researcher Kate Starbird eloquently writes, “Repeatedly, we see cases of accidents and errors around mail and/or ballots framed in misleading ways — and mobilized by right-wing influencers, including POTUS — to support the false narrative of systematic voter fraud. An active disinfo campaign against our country.”

On that, Yochai Benkler writes that “Journalists should treat systematic disinformation campaigns from President Trump and his party no differently than those from Russian propagandists and Facebook clickbait artists.”

VP Debate

The VP Debate this week felt more important than usual because of uncertainty around Trump’s health and what might happen next in this race. (Indeed, it seems the next debate has been cancelled now.)

Within the context of the debate itself, misinformation spread. Reuters debunks a theory that the word “evil” was seen behind Harris and “light” behind Pence as some sort of signal. In reality, the same words from the Declaration of Independence were behind both of them.

Actor James Woods posted to his 2.6 million followers that Harris had the questions in advance.

Politifact has a round up of fact checks from the VP debate here.

The Washington Post has a case study in how sexist, racist attacks on Kamala Harris have spread online.

Hillary Emails

Trump’s announcement about halting COVID stimulus talks was big news but far bigger in the MAGA world was his announcement about declassifying documents regarding “the Russia hoax.” Some QAnon folks are calling this “Red October,” as they are sure it will reveal the corruption of the Deep State, including Obama and Hillary Clinton. MAGA groups are sharing this Fox News article claiming that it proves Clinton orchestrated a focus on the Trump-Russia connection in 2016 as a way to distract the public from the emails controversy.

Four years on, the Trump world is still obsessed with Hillary’s emails. Trump is trailing Biden in the polls. Maybe he’s hoping that reverting to an earlier successful strategy can get him out of his current situation.

Conspiracy to Kidnap Gov Whitmer

NBC News reports that a number of men who are to be charged with a conspiracy to kidnap Gov Whitmer of Michigan have ties to the Boogaloo movement. Buzzfeed has a detailed outline of how the plan was hatched.

VICE reports that the Boogaloo Bois are turning a man killed in an FBI shootout into their new martyr.

Platforms

Both Twitter and Facebook made notable moves this week.

Twitter announced some upcoming changes which have been broadly welcomed by the misinformation researcher community. (Although it’s still early days.)

They are trying to add more “friction” to the spread of misinformation, making it slightly harder to retweet, for example. Baybars Örsek of the International Fact Checking Network questioned some of these moves: “What I see is an untested and very US-specific approach lack of transparency & monitoring.”

Facebook said it would ban political ads after the election. But the more significant action from them this week was cracking down hard on QAnon. Many of the misinformation researchers saw these pages and groups disappear from the platform.

Also this week, Facebook removed a post from Trump comparing COVID-19 to the flu. Twitter attached a warning label to the respective post. Politifact reports that “COVID-19 is estimated to be about 10 times more deadly than the seasonal flu.”

PS

This week I published a blog post with Kinzen outlining some of the work we do. Have a read and let me know what you think.