Tracking Viral Misinformation About the 2020 Election

 Every day, Times reporters will chronicle and debunk false and misleading information that is going viral online.

Republican distrust of news may be helping election misinformation spread.

Research from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has found a long and steady decline in trust in traditional media among more conservative Americans. In its place, they are increasingly relying on right-wing media outlets like Breitbart News and One America News and conservative pundits with a history of spreading falsehoods.

This week, Politico published a poll finding that 70 percent of Republicans do not believe the election was free and fair.

OTHER HEADLINES:

No, Dominion voting machines did not delete Trump votes.

Conservatives, feeling muzzled on social media, are switching to apps like Parler.

We called officials in every state. None had evidence of significant voter fraud.

There is no proof that people stole maiden names to vote.

For those who still believe in Rightwing Conspiracy theories concerning the election, please read:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions

From The Flogging Dead Horses Department: There Was No Widespread Voter Fraud

The president, and various pro-Trump sources and politicians continue to claim widespread voter fraud tainted the 2020 election. The claims continue to be false. Such claims have reached a point where they are lies in view of existing evidence. The AP writes:

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s hard to put it any more bluntly: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”

Rejecting President Donald Trump’s persistent claims and complaints, a broad coalition of top government and industry officials is declaring that the Nov. 3 voting and the following count unfolded smoothly with no more than the usual minor hiccups.

It was, they declare, resorting to Trump’s sort of dramatic language, “the most secure in American history.”

The statement late Thursday by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency amounted to the most direct repudiation to date of Trump’s efforts to undermine the integrity of the contest, and echoed repeated assertions by election experts and state officials.

The New York Times writes:

WASHINGTON — Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that [a Trump lie follows] a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised.

The rebuke, in a statement by a coordinating council overseeing the voting systems used around the country, never mentioned Mr. Trump by name. But it amounted to a remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that Mr. Trump has been pushing across his Twitter feed.

The statement was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. Coming directly from one of Mr. Trump’s own cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election.  

Across the country, election officials have said the vote came off smoothly, with no reports of systemic fraud in any state, no sign of foreign interference in the voting infrastructure and no hardware or software failures beyond the episodic glitches that happen in any election. (emphasis added)

Authoritarian Trump and the authoritarian GOP are directly attacking democracy

In continuing the charade, the president and GOP are undermining democracy, elections and the rule of law. The Washington Post writes: 

Republicans’ private talking point about how they can continue to aid President Trump in denying election results boils down to what a senior Republican told The Washington Post this week: What’s the harm in humoring him?

Plenty, say national security officials who are concerned about how other countries — and the coronavirus — could take advantage of a slowed transition for President-elect Joe Biden. Plenty, say democracy experts who warn that the Republican Party is undermining the foundations of the U.S. electoral system and that the GOP is mirroring authoritarianism.

Political Tweet Analysis: Power Flows from Media to Politician

An article published by Nature, one of the world's most respected science magazines, describes the effects of Trump's Tweets on media coverage. The article's abstract says this:

Social media has arguably shifted political agenda-setting power away from mainstream media onto politicians. Current U.S. President Trump’s reliance on Twitter is unprecedented, but the underlying implications for agenda setting are poorly understood. Using the president as a case study, we present evidence suggesting that President Trump’s use of Twitter diverts crucial media (The New York Times and ABC News) from topics that are potentially harmful to him. We find that increased media coverage of the Mueller investigation is immediately followed by Trump tweeting increasingly about unrelated issues. This increased activity, in turn, is followed by a reduction in coverage of the Mueller investigation—a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that President Trump’s tweets may also successfully divert the media from topics that he considers threatening. The pattern is absent in placebo analyses involving Brexit coverage and several other topics that do not present a political risk to the president. Our results are robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables and examination of several alternative explanations, although the generality of the successful diversion must be established by further investigation. (emphasis added)

Once again, the power of dark free speech (lies, deceit, unwarranted emotional manipulation, partisan motivated reasoning, etc.) is observed. The casualty is, as usual, the public interest and the wound is deceit and distraction. Ever since Trump announced he was running for president, the professional media seemed to be doing a bad job in dealing with Trump's endless stream of dark free speech. I wavered between giving the media an overall D or D-. 

I suspected that the reason Trump tweeted when and as he did was to divert attention from his problems and failures. This research supports that belief. Trump is not the only politician or government that does this to manipulate the media and public perceptions. The Nature article includes this in the paper's introduction:

On August 4, 2014, a devastating earthquake maimed and killed thousands in China’s Yunnan province. Within hours, Chinese media were saturated with stories about the apparent confession by an Internet celebrity to have engaged in gambling and prostitution. News about the earthquake was marginalized, to the point that the Chinese Red Cross implored the public to ignore the celebrity scandal. The flooding of the media with stories about a minor scandal appeared to have been no accident, but represented a concerted effort of the Chinese government to distract the public’s attention from the earthquake and the government’s inadequate disaster preparedness. This organized distraction was not an isolated incident. It has been estimated that the Chinese government posts around 450 million social media comments per year, using a 50-cent army of operatives to disseminate messages. Unlike traditional censorship of print or broadcast media, which interfered with writers and speakers to control the source of information, this new form of Internet-based censorship interferes with consumers by diverting attention from controversial issues. Inconvenient speech is drowned out rather than being banned outright. (emphasis added)

And, once again, the power of social media to poison millions of minds to the detriment of the public interest is clear. Unlike the Chinese people, Americans still have a chance to fight against dark free speech in social media. The question is how long will this luxury last? 

The Constant Presence of Propaganda: Oil Company Astroturfing Public Opinion

Propaganda by a public relations (propaganda) company website named 

Texans for Natural Gas funded by natural gas interests but pretending to 

be regular folks naturally supporting natural gas  

Astroturfing: the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization, e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations (propaganda) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants

The New York Times writes: 

In early 2017, the Texans for Natural Gas website went live to urge voters to “thank a roughneck” and support fracking. Around the same time, the Arctic Energy Center ramped up its advocacy for drilling in Alaskan waters and in a vast Arctic wildlife refuge. The next year, the Main Street Investors Coalition warned that climate activism doesn’t help mom-and-pop investors in the stock market.

All three appeared to be separate efforts to amplify local voices or speak up for regular people.

On closer look, however, the groups had something in common: They were part of a network of corporate influence campaigns designed, staffed and at times run by FTI Consulting, which had been hired by some of the largest oil and gas companies in the world to help them promote fossil fuels.

An examination of FTI’s work provides an anatomy of the oil industry’s efforts to influence public opinion in the face of increasing political pressure over climate change, an issue likely to grow in prominence, given President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pledge to pursue bolder climate regulations. The campaigns often obscure the industry’s role, portraying pro-petroleum groups as grass-roots movements.

As part of its services to the industry, FTI monitored environmental activists online, and in one instance an employee created a fake Facebook persona — an imaginary, middle-aged Texas woman with a dog — to help keep tabs on protesters. Former FTI employees say they studied other online influence campaigns and compiled strategies for affecting public discourse. They helped run a campaign that sought a securities rule change, described as protecting the interests of mom-and-pop investors, that aimed to protect oil and gas companies from shareholder pressure to address climate and other concerns.

FTI employees also staffed two news and information sites, Energy In Depth and Western Wire, writing pro-industry articles on fracking, climate lawsuits and other hot-button issues. Former employees familiar with Energy In Depth said the site’s content had direction from Exxon Mobil, one of the major clients of the FTI division that worked on these oil and gas campaigns.

The Energy In Depth website notes its affiliation with an energy trade group that Exxon is a member of, though not Exxon’s role in directing content that the site published. 

This article is based on interviews with a dozen former FTI employees, including former managing directors, a review of hundreds of internal FTI documents and an examination of the digital trail of domain-name registrations and other details left by the creation of the websites. In all, FTI has been involved in the operations of at least 15 current and past influence campaigns promoting fossil-fuel interests in addition to its direct work for oil and gas clients.

Matthew Bashalany, an FTI spokesman, disputed the idea that FTI worked behind the scenes for these groups. [FTI lies in its own defense][1] “We hide behind no one,” he said.

“We summarily reject as false, misleading and defamatory the general narrative and specific claims,” he said. “We hold ourselves to the highest professional and ethical standards of conduct; when and where shortfalls are identified in this regard, they are addressed appropriately.”

This is just a reminder that the real war in America is over winning hearts and minds. The goal for rich and powerful people and interests is gaining and maintaining wealth and power. The goal for the masses, or the mob as the radical right sees it, is a better deal based on less economic inequality and special interest over public interest influence (i.e., money and power). 

This is an all-out war of dark free speech (lies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation, self-serving motivated reasoning, etc.) against the masses. Unfortunately, dark free speech is more powerful than honest free speech. The playing field is heavily tilted in favor of the rich and powerful as it usually is and has been throughout history.

Footnote: 

1. Going forward, I will try to insert a notice that a lie or other form of deceit follows from content I quote. To better counteract dark free speech, I will try to get closer to the truth sandwich rhetorical tactic (discussed here) that has been proposed as a better way to deal with dark free speech. If I don't get to a full sandwich, I'll at least make an open faced sandwich, e.g., [FTI lies in its own defense]. The point of this is to try to be more aggressive and effective in countering dark free speech.

A THEORY ABOUT TRUMPISM

 I HAVE A THEORY.

YES - this is strictly MY theory, SNOWFLAKE'S theory, so you are more than welcome to disagree with it.

I HAVE been reading more and more headlines lately about "TRUMPISM", and how it will still be with us long after Trump.

IN FACT, Trumpism by another name has been with us for decades and it only took Trump to bring it to the surface.

NOW HERE IS MY THEORY:

Call it the darkest before the dawn theory, or call it the storm before the calm theory, but I think we needed Trumpism to usher in a new era in the good Ole U.S. of A.

NOT making headlines is that five states had ballot initiatives about passing legal cannabis laws, and in all five, the initiative passed.

MORE AND MORE individuals, cities and states are moving towards alternative energies. HELL, electric charging stations for electric cars are popping up all over the place.

AND ENTIRE GENERATION of young people are growing up and reaching voting age that view the Environment as a #1 priority, as well as some form of Universal health care.

By 2050, or some sites saying even before that, Whites will be in the minority in the U.S. The Right can only do so much gerrymandering or passing of Voter ID laws, and still not be able to stem the tide.

I GET IT - 70 million voted for Trump, but I believe, and hence MY theory, that this was the last gasp of the middle age, middle income, middle (and southern) Americans who want desperately to keep their image of America alive - Bibles, guns, football, pick-up trucks and backyard BBQs.

BUT a record number of people also voted for Biden, despite all the measures put into place to disenfranchise legitimate voters, and Biden could NOT have won with just the minority vote. A LOT OF WHITES would have had to vote for him too.

I could spend my time posting links to numerous articles on the subject of a changing America, but I only have to use my eyes and ears:

Gay marriage being more accepted, more states legalizing cannabis, white suburbs becoming more and more interracial, black entrepreneurs popping up all over the place.

YES, I KNOW that this is still a white man's country, abortion rights are being overturned in many states, and we have to wring our hands at having a conservative SCOTUS, but.....

The trendlines are moving left, they really are, just think back to what it was like in the 60s and 70s (if you are old enough to remember that far back).

Progress is irritatingly slow, with many bumps along the road, but I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that over the next couple of decades we will end up looking more like Europe and Canada than the States of the 1950s (which a lot of people are fearing we are regressing into)

Maybe one needs to be a SNOWFLAKE or an optimist to see the silver lining, but I BELIEVE that we needed Trump to show us the ugly underbelly of the monster, and that having seen the ugly underbelly, we will be even MORE motivated to bring about CHANGE.

THAT is my theory anyways.

Voter Fraud: The GOP's Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness Monster - IT'S ALIVE!!!

The GOP and Trump keep alleging and looking for widespread vote fraud. They keep failing to find it. Trump's vote fraud commission failed to find the millions of fraudulent votes that Trump claimed and still claims were cast in the 2016 election. That effort ended after finding no evidence. NPR just announced that a Texas republican will pay up to $25,000 for information about voter fraud in 2020 that leads to a conviction. 

AP commented in 2018 on the end of the commission: 

The now-disbanded voting integrity commission launched by the Trump administration uncovered no evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud, according to an analysis of administration documents released Friday. In a letter to Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who are both Republicans and led the commission, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said the documents show there was a “pre-ordained outcome” and that drafts of a commission report included a section on evidence of voter fraud that was “glaringly empty.”

 
The New York Times went looking for evidence of vote fraud in the 2020 election and writes this in an article entitled The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud:

PHILADELPHIA — Election officials in dozens of states representing both political parties said that there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the presidential race, amounting to a forceful rebuke of President Trump’s portrait of a fraudulent election.

Over the last several days, the president, members of his administration, congressional Republicans and right wing allies have put forth the false claim that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump and have refused to accept results that showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner.

“There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” said Frank LaRose, a Republican who serves as Ohio’s secretary of state. “The conspiracy theories and rumors and all those things run rampant. For some reason, elections breed that type of mythology.”

The New York Times contacted the offices of the top election officials in every state on Monday and Tuesday to ask whether they suspected or had evidence of illegal voting. Officials in 45 states responded directly to The Times. For four of the remaining states, The Times spoke to other statewide officials or found public comments from secretaries of state; none reported any major voting issues.  

What emerged in The Times’s reporting was how, beyond the president, Republicans in many states were engaged in a widespread effort to delegitimize the nation’s voting system.  

Some Republicans have even turned to lashing members of their own party who, in their eyes, did not show sufficient dedication to rooting out fraud. In Georgia, where Mr. Biden is leading, the two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both of whom are in a runoff to gain re-election, have called for the resignation of the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger. “The secretary of state has failed to deliver honest and transparent elections,” the senators said in a statement.

The GOP and Trump vote fraud searches have all failed. Sometimes absence of evidence really does amount to evidence of absence.