This Week in Misinformation: [A Small Ask,] 2020 Deniers Ascendant and Obnoxious, Trump Embraces QAnon, NyQuil Chicken On The Scene
22 September 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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Misinformation is the best lens through which to understand news about the world. Remove the garbage cluttering your view, and you can see things clearly for what they are.
BEFORE our top stories, I have a request. You folks make this newsletter possible; for what is writing without readers? I am never going to put up a paywall because I want this work to be available to all.
But tonight I am going to ask that you consider donating to another Prism project, our Guide to January 6th. After months working on this, I found I could only take the audio/visual production to a certain level. It isn’t good enough.
With your help, I will hire a professional to bring design sense and editing skills to bear and make the compelling video trailer and accompanying artwork that is needed to get this on people’s radar, and make it highly shareable. Details at the GoFundMe link (click and share me!); I am also very happy to share a preview of the audio essay content to anyone who is curious what this thing even is. The full Guide will be out for release next month.
Any bit you can spare is huge for the success of the project—and for growing Prism into a multimedia operation—and is an easy way to take that next step toward doing something about misinformation. For contributors who will allow it, I will include a message of thanks for you by name in the voice track of the essay’s conclusion. Appreciate you, so much. -K
Okay, *now* we can do the news. :-)
Confirmed: Election deniers are on the ballot all over the place.
The problem with having so many conspiracy theorist nominees for statewide office is that if Republicans do well in November we are going to see slower, less accurate vote counts (Washington Post, 39.76).
And that’s the best-case scenario, because there is a nontrivial chance that a Republican who outright does not believe a Democrat can legitimately win an election (12 News Phoenix, -) in their battleground state will soon be in position to contest--or simply reject out of hand (Washington Post, 39.76)--any result of the 2024 contest or other future elections that they don’t like. These are Trump dead-enders (New York Times, 42.90), so you can guess what that will probably mean.
With so much on the line, Democrats are investing to try and head off this threat by funding these Republicans’ opponents in the general (New York Times, 42.90). Separately, it is perhaps encouraging that despite a thriving ecosystem of election-denying influencers supporting these politico counterparts (Washington Post, 39.76), an increasing number are facing real legal consequences for taking action on their beliefs (NPR, 44.43).
More bad news: the 2020 truther crowd is already causing problems, in this cycle, by overwhelming local election offices with public records requests.
Jamming up the system with excess paper that requires human beings to respond--requests for information about the 2020 election--is happening in so many places across the U.S. (Associated Press, 48.69) that it’s impossible to believe it is an organic phenomenon. If Trump supporters are doing this all at once (CNN, 42.58) in Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon, it isn’t a stretch think this is an intentional “paper terrorism” tactic to purposely undermine election officials’ ability to do their job of administering the 2022 contest. And those are just the M through O states!
All the while, election officials continue to remain at risk of physical harm from people upset that Trump lost, and the federal government has declined to do anything about all that (CNN, 42.58).
A similar dynamic is playing out on the front lines of the information war over climate change, where activists are hitting researchers with lawsuits in addition to records requests (Bloomberg, 45.43), forcing responses to frivolous nonsense so their work is slowed.
To file under “not surprised, but still,” the former president has been focused on making overtures to the Internet fairy tale known as QAnon, who also happen to believe the election was stolen.
There’s not much to go on in terms of understanding Donald Trump’s motivation for fully and explicitly embracing these conspiracy theorists (PBS, 47.92), but it’s not unreasonable to think it could have to do with changing the conversation because of the legal trouble he’s in (The Atlantic, 39.01), pandering for a voter base that has moved well away from reality (@pbump via Washington Post, 39.76), or that he just has to have the adulation that the QAnon cult offers. My money is on a combination of all three.
Whatever his reasons, it’s ugly stuff (New Yorker, 40.27). But gestures both big (CNN, 42.58) and small (New York Times, 42.90) by Trump are setting Q world inhabitants’ hearts ablaze with hope that “the Storm” is about to be ushered in after all these years of waiting (CNN, 42.58). They are also getting amped because of something to do with an episode of The Simpsons (VICE, 38.71), but that is mostly a separate issue. On TikTok, according to a new report, QAnon videos are benefiting from a kind of renaissance with this development, with some clips streamed millions of times (NBC News, 45.63).
Important side bar on permission structures: Trump doing these things is a clear signal to others, like Mark Finchem in Arizona (AZ Mirror, 43.70), that it’s okay to more openly identify with the QAnon movement (Newsweek, 38.35). If you love Trump, you believe in Q, and vice versa.
Do we even need a grab bag? Of course we do: the Pentagon looks into its own clandestine psychological operations abroad; the FDA does a Barbra Streisand with a NyQuil chicken warning; Newsguard finds that tech platforms are responsible for still boosting stolen-election lies; there may soon be a Supreme Court decision on whether states can stop social media sites from moderating content; Gen Z uses TikTok like a search engine, but one out of five videos they see contains misinformation; Trump continues lionizing jailed January 6th criminals; Republicans rally against a successful bill in the House to prevent stolen elections; the reason Mike Lindell’s phone was seized is that the FBI is investigating him in connection with the Tina Peters case; Lindell is also ordered to face the defamation suit brought by Smartmatic; so many doses for children, so few parents vaccinating their kids (for measles, too); and the second Alex Jones trial is giving him a chance to spread the usual lies.
All this, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin