This Week in Misinformation: 187 Minutes, Texts Mystery, Teacher-Slapping Hoax, Mutant Troops
21 July 2022
This Prism newsletter strives to be the paper of record for all that’s happening in misinformation in the United States. For any citizen whose life is impacted by misinformation, it helps you see how storylines evolve from multiple, sourced angles on important stories in one place. For amateur and professional misinformation watchers, it is your go-to resource for updates on peers, platforms, propagandists, and politicians. Learn more about Prism and our other products on our Substack page, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook!
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Reliability scores for media outlets cited in the summary are in parentheses for each, courtesy of the terrific folks at Ad Fontes Media.
Now, on to our top stories.
The second primetime hearing of the January 6th Committee is a wrap.
We learned a good amount about how Trump simply chose not to act during the 187 minutes of violence at the Capitol (USA Today, 45.12), despite there being a suspicious lack of documentation from those hours; nearly everyone around begged him to intervene, but he stayed glued to his White House television.
With respect to how Trump felt about what his attackers were doing up Pennsylvania Avenue, and despite knowing full well they were armed and were out to kill Mike Pence and others, it was reported that he pushed back on calling for the protest to be “peaceful” in his tweets that afternoon (USA Today, 45.12). Even in conceding that violence was not going to give him the outcome he wanted, Trump refused to say the election was "over" (Axios, 44.37) in a speech the following day that in any event he later wished he could take back (Rolling Stone, 38.77).
The hearing also introduced evidence on other vignettes from the day, for example the expletives-laced telephone call between Trump and Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy (CNN, 42.40). Plus: the gift of security camera footage of Senator Josh Hawley high-footing it from the mob he had hours before enthusiastically fist-pumped (NBC News, 45.80)There will be additional hearings in September, but this week closed out the initial series of eight. For those keeping score at home, most Americans now think Trump is to blame for January 6th, but they believe he won't face charges for it (NPR, 44.42).
There was a whole thing with the Secret Service misplacing (?) basically all its text messages from January 5th and 6th.
The Secret Service was in the middle of it during those two days--from witnessing Trump’s post-speech SUV tantrum to feeling afraid enough for their lives working Pence’s detail that they spoke to one another about “saying goodbye” to family members (Vanity Fair, 35.66). When it came out that the organization had erased texts, it was cause for concern for those trying to get to the bottom of January 6th (Washington Post, 40.02).
And so it was that the Committee subpoenaed Secret Service for the missing records (Washington Post, 40.02). The response, however, was to hand over just one text message (The Guardian, 43.79) and to advise everyone who might care that the rest are unlikely to be recovered (New York Times, 42.95).
Trump made a show of saying he wants records from the Secret Service more than even the Committee, claiming tapes would prove his side of the story about the SUV driver (New York Post, 32.69). Note, on this, that the Committee presented several corroborating accounts of the Cassidy Hutchinson version, but okay!
The initial investigations have been superseded as a criminal investigation is now underway related to the deletion of the texts (Forbes, 43.36), so we may all be in for more on this story.
A couple quick platform developments of note.
With the rise in abortion-related misinformation, YouTube says it will crack down on and remove videos with false claims (CNBC, 46.19). A group of 17 Republican attorneys general, meanwhile, warned Google against limiting results for anti-abortion centers when users search (CBS News, 46.07).
At WhatsApp, they are trying to limit the spread of fake news by limiting message forwarding to just 20 chats at a time (Poynter, -). This follows on a new feature allowing users to label forwarded messages.
Remember the “slap a teacher” hoax over on TikTok? Media Matters (-) has you covered with an authoritative account of how it went down.
Ah, sweet! It’s time for grab bag: Russia is blaming its failures in Ukraine on experimental lab-created mutant Ukrainian troops; Steve Bannon says nothing in his defense at trial for contempt; the Associated Press finds no major problems with ballot drop boxes in 2020; Colorado’s QAnon clerk Tina Peters asks tries to personally orchestrate a recount of her (major) loss, then has new warrant issued for her arrest; Bill Barr and some others of dubious reliability launch a new ‘election integrity’ effort; a new Harvard study sees Trump as the obvious reason most people participated in the Capitol attack; a QAnon fan bring JFK Jr.'s magazine back with Trump on the cover; so many Q people are being elected in Republican primaries; vaccine skepticism leads to sharp drop in childhood vaccinations; you can thank inauthentic social media accounts for the ‘Snyder Cut’; Verizon dashes OAN’s hopes of staying on air; scammers are threatening the livelihood of psychics and tarot readers on Instagram; and Ivana Trump’s untimely death prompted #Epsteined to trend among leftists online.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin