This Week in Misinformation: Chan Shooter, Return of the Q(uack), Dobbs and Bricks and Pregnancy, Cassidy Hutchinson
7 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 Highland Park shooter was into online conspiracy forums for years.
Researchers took a couple days to analyze the man who murdered 4th of July parade-goers in Illinois this week, but ultimately it seems likely that he was motivated more by the "shooter" aesthetic than politics or ideology (NPR, 44.42). The shooter had attended Trump rallies (@Rachels_Views via Twitter), but he was solidly a creature of websites like the 4chan imageboard (@BriannaWu via Twitter).
Unfounded theories about the shooting being faked swirled, as they always do, on Telegram (@coolfacejane via Twitter), and Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene asserted, that Highland Park and another shooting in Philadelphia were “false flags” ginned up toe justify gun control (@patriottakes via Twitter).
The Anti-Defamation League (-) compiled and debunked dis- and misinformation about the Highland Park shooting, so check that out for more.
This news is a bit old already, but I’m glad we waited to talk more about the sudden reappearance of the 8kun poster called “Q.”
After 18 months of being absent from the scene, the imageboard 8kun saw its “Q” account make a return (@2022_Karma via Twitter).
But Q wasn’t on his (or their) game; whoever was doing the posts has made at least three major blunders (@travis_view via Twitter) that already have revealed a lot to those who know what technical aspects to be looking for (@QOrigins via Twitter). It’s looking like Jim Watkins as top bet at this point, but either way it seems certain to be someone with 8kun admin privileges based on forensic analysis.
Q’s return is being hailed as a great event by the community of people who make their money hyping Q (VICE, 41.61)--but as influencers feel empowered, more ordinary people are put pulling people back in and more of their loved ones are feeling triggered just as some families were starting to move on from QAnon-related trauma.
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs, there was misinformation about the street response and about abortion itself.
Congressperson Lauren Boebert wasted no time in assigning nefarious intent to the obviously innocent presence of pallets of bricks near the Supreme Court building (Daily Beast, 35.65). People noticing bricks near protests is becoming a staple!
At a time when abortions are being made illegal in many states, the many (Scientific American, 43.70), many (Bloomberg, 45.53), many (Washington Post, 40.11) types of misinformation out there about it poses a clear danger to women seeking them.
This month has seen a proliferation of “crisis pregnancy centers” as alternatives to abortion clinics, but these facilities are sometimes direct participants in related misinformation (NBC News, 45.80).
Ah, what a sweet grab bag: Cassidy Hutchinson rocked legal experts and conservative media with her testimony at the January 6th Committee hearing, so naturally QAnon and others moved to discredit her; Mike Flynn waited a full minute and a half to answer when asked if he believed in the peaceful transition of power; the Committee’s hearings have been pretty different from past Congressional panels, in a good way; the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case next year on the theory that state legislatures have an ability to throw their electoral votes to the presidential candidate they like best; there’s a whole grifter army still profiting off the 2020 election lies; Tina Peters and others on the fringe of the Republican Party have lost their primaries in Colorado; Trump is annoyed that Mark Brnovich has been using his name to raise campaign money on false pretenses; Facebook functionally ends CrowdTangle, its primary research tool available to the public; TikTok creators are pushing back on medical misinformation on the platform; our political system is probably incapable of discussing disinformation, to say nothing of help address it; a rich American co-Owns a pro-Kremlin propaganda website; that video of Biden and the Medal of Honor was popular but faked; and *cough* the big particle physics experiment in Switzerland wasn't anything to get worked up about.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin