Kate StarbirdChapter 1 of the Jan 6 Committee's final report documents the "Big Lie" and explains how Trump and his allies intentionally stoked distrust in main-in ballots and then strategically exploited the "Red Mirage" (Republicans leading early in places where the counting of mail-in ballots was delayed) to prematurely claim victory (on election night) and lay the foundations for claims of "fraud" as the lead shifted from Trump to Biden in key states.
For those watching closely in the months leading up to the 2020 election, none of this was surprising, because Trump and his close allies repeatedly tipped their hand to indicate their intentions to do just this.
The Jan 6 final report mentions the role of Tom Fitton (Judicial Watch) in drafting Trump's premature victory speech. Perhaps not surprisingly, the same Tom Fitton operated one of the more influential accounts in spreading false, misleading, and/or unsubstantiated claims sowing doubt in the election processes and/or results. Our research team documented his role in spreading 19 different misleading claims.
https://journalqd.org/article/view/3137
https://journalqd.org/article/view/3137
In 2020, our team participated in a collaborative effort through the Election Integrity Partnership to identify false, misleading, and/or unsubstantiated claims. At UW, we worked, primarily, on analysis of those claims — to track how they were spreading online.
We have several papers in the pipeline drawing from that work — including published work introducing our dataset (of 100s of false/misleading/unsubstantiated claims), and upcoming work showing how disinformation was participatory, how people mobilized on top of misleading claims, and how states that delayed the counting of mail-in votes saw more discourse around false, misleading, and/or unsubstantiated claims about election processes and procedures.
There's a conspiracy theory circulating online that our research identifying repeat spreaders was some kind of "watch list" that we developed under direction from the government and/or as part of a social media platform censorship effort. None of that is true. This was an independent, student-driven project whose findings we published through blogs, tweets, presentations, and a peer-reviewed paper. We're extremely proud of that work. Here again is the link to our paper: https://journalqd.org/article/view/3137
The work of the January 6 committee drives home the significance of the disinformation campaign to sow doubt in the election — documenting how Trump and his close allies used that campaign to motivate and mobilize supporters, leading to the events of January 6 and disrupting our country's long history of the peaceful transfer of power.
Reading further into Chapter 1 of the January 6 report, our EIP team is cited for an explanation of participatory disinformation: "Researchers who studied this election-denial phenomenon have noted: "President Trump didn’t just prime his audience to be receptive to false narratives of election fraud—he inspired them to produce those narratives and then echoed those false claims back to them.""
Voron@katestarbird Thank you I just downloaded the pdf and will be reading it. Being aware of the marketing concept of “brand ambassadors” has served me over the years in discerning how to engage politically. A step below the focus of your posts I believe. Though created zealous believers that essentially spread the brand to their friends and family seems to be the right wing play book and likely amplifies the msgs for the superspreaders you are referring to.
James Zimmerman@katestarbird
Thank you for bringing this paper and the orgs you work with to my attention.
I can't wait to read, watch and share these resources with my circles.
Thank you for bringing this paper and the orgs you work with to my attention.
I can't wait to read, watch and share these resources with my circles.
EmoluMental@katestarbird Home is where the applause on demand is.
Chris Abraham@katestarbird
I guess the victors get to write the history.
I guess the victors get to write the history.
really? why?@katestarbird this is why rid and the aot people bum me out by espousing the narrative that "it's harmful to report on disinfo and disinfo isn't that effective anyway."
I feel like I fought in a war that they claim doesn't exist.
Activists know about influence and numbers
@reallywhy Wouldn't you say Rid argues not that disinfo is ineffective but that it is very difficult to measure its effects? Especially when the impact is so diffuse, and consists not only of direct effects, but nth order effects that are effectively impossible to operationalize and measure.
@reallywhy But this case is pretty clear... of the impact of disinformation both on the audiences, as well as the "elites" who strategically employed and may have come to opportunistically believe their false claims and narratives.
@katestarbird You're correct, that's the argument.
I feel that it's incorrect to try to ostrich disinfo away. I see it affecting society in dangerous ways and I believe we need to evolve an immunity to this hazard that has mutated significantly with the broad adoption of the modern information environment. If it takes skill to safely report on disinfo then I think we need to propagate these skills of safely reporting on disinfo. I think illuminating deception is its best cure.
@katestarbird Also, I don't think some conclusive proof of efficacy should be a prerequisite of covering the subject. That doesn't make any sense to me at all because I think it would be inherently very difficult to try to absolutely prove the kind of efficacy we are talking about. That's just by the nature of it. Why should we wait for such a proof when we have cause for concern? There may not be a proof but there is evidence. The cause for concern is more than enough to justify vast coverage.
@reallywhy Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I have seen more than enough evidence to think we should be concerned... from Maria Ressa's early entreaties to platforms to address influence ops in the Philippines, to Russian influence ops and how they resonated, including among elites, in the US and UK in 2016, to the domestic disinformation campaign that sowed doubt in the 2020 election in the U.S.
toxtethogrady@katestarbird No need to justify yourself, when the people doing the complaining are engaged in the worst of the disinformation. Celebrate your Deep State status. In fact, you are welcome to have your very own one of these...