Over the past few days, thousands of Threads users have amplified baseless claims of hacked voting machines as Democrats become more comfortable embracing denialism.

I wrote about how Threads became ground zero for election hacking conspiracies and how Metas decision to restrict journalists and news content has exacerbated the problem. https://www.usermag.co/p/metas-threads-overrun-with-liberal-election-fraud-conspiracies

Meta's Threads is 'overrun' with liberal election fraud conspiracies

Thousands of users have amplified baseless claims of hacked voting machines as Democrats become more comfortable embracing denialism

User Mag
@taylorlorenz We lost. It sucks. But we lost. 😞
@taylorlorenz I'm here wondering what's the right move - see this and ignore and move on, or try to engage and tell people not to chase election fraud without real proof. Does it it help put out the fire or feed it?
@squizzleflip @taylorlorenz Putin feeds on US division, doesn't matter who increases it. That's the core of russian disinformation, make everything confusing and horrible so people disengage completely.

@taylorlorenz

Rather than engage in the stark realities of things like natural disasters, political upheaval, a global pandemic, or societal challenges, people are retreating into their own alternative realities. At its core, it's denialism. It’s a deliberate rejection of the truth and anyone who challenges this denialism will be met with hate, hostility, and abuse.πŸ’―

@taylorlorenz Because BS election conspiracies are not just for Trump anymore?
@taylorlorenz I'm going to push back on this framing "Democrats become more comfortable embracing denialism"
You can wonder, for example, the effect of various voter suppression efforts. People who voted for an Abortion-rights question but not Harris ?
But there is not to my perception any denialism about what just happened.
It's clear. Half our neighbors, on average, wanted this. Deal with it.
@taylorlorenz Of course! Do people forget that Threads is part of Facebook?
@taylorlorenz Why not? Give MAGA a taste of their own medicine. Why do Dems always have to be the adults in the room? That has gotten us exactly where?
@roberams @taylorlorenz And exactly where do you think spouting bullshit about voting machines will get Democrats? The answer is nowhere. "Sure, we lie about elections now as well, but we're the good guys protecting democracy! Vote blue!" That seems like a surefire way to increase voter apathy, not win votes.
@kerplunk @taylorlorenz The battle is in the information space before it's in the voting booth. Flood the zone. It works for Bannon and it can work for us.
@taylorlorenz Sucks mango Mussolini won but now we need to work on putting up guard rails to limit damage and taking the house and senate in 2026 and make him a lame duck president.
A silver lining because Trump's clown squad will mess things up the people who voted for him will have buyer's remorse.

@Luna @taylorlorenz

Mighty bold of you to assume we're even gonna have meaningful elections in two years time...

@taylorlorenz

We're at war and if this is what it takes to get people to break out of their complacency and start breaking shit, I'm all for it.

@taylorlorenz

> "As trust in factual reporting collapses, people will deny even the most rigorously verified truths."

Sounds like next thing your going to deny is that the planet is a dish ..

Maybe journalists and news content creators need to find a non-corporate social media ecosystem where their content is not subject to censorship.

We have a very nice one right here.

Why not come and help us make it even better as @taylorlorenz is doing?

@taylorlorenz This is another example that highlights the cost of random members of the public publishing to global platforms with no pre-publication vetting and culling.

You can't convince people who are in something akin to shock and seeking refuge in emotion-driven irrationality that something doesn't exist no matter how much they argue it does.

It's counterproductive to engage with these people, like throwing water on a grease fire in the kitchen.

@taylorlorenz until of course the GoP side started to win and then it all went quiet, funny that

@taylorlorenz I'm not convinced it was the voting machines.

I've heard Trump has been busy filling out the whole voting operations with his own people. It wouldn't be hard for people in individual counties to simply fudge the numbers a little bit, especially if people in every county did it.

Trump has been cheating all his life. Why would he stop at this election?

@taylorlorenz TikTok too. It’s getting embarrassing

@taylorlorenz Indeed. I live in Nevada, so apparently the deep red rural counties here managed to hack the vote, so they overwhelmingly went for Trump (like they did before.)

And yet somehow allowed the Democratic senator and three Democratic house members to get re-elected.

How fiendish of them.

@taylorlorenz It's 2004 all over again. :-(
@taylorlorenz any top Dems there? I’ll buy some are but posit this is also a being pushed by opaque click baiters too. Context.
@taylorlorenz I think things were manipulated, but by that I mean all the gerrymandering and other measures that have been taken to suppress voting rights. They spent the last few years making it harder to vote.