This Week in Misinformation: Elections in Peril, Insurrectionists in Trouble, QAnon/The Queen, Google's 'Hot Girl' Debunker
8 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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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.
People steeped in misinformation about the 2020 election are getting into position to control key parts of the 2022 midterms.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the person that the Republican nominee for governor wants to put in charge of elections is Toni Shuppe, the QAnon-touting election denier who last year cofounded an effort to get Pennsylvania’s presidential vote audited (VICE, 38.71). Shuppe is one of a coterie of fabulists, conspiracy theorists, and militants who would sweep into power if Doug Mastriano wins in November (Philadelphia Inquirer, 40.60).
Yes, this is happening across the country (FiveThirtyEight, 43.50), and yes, much of it is coordinated. Disgraced former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn is being profiled by the Associated Press (48.69) for his efforts to put election deniers and Christian nationalists into election administrator roles and onto school boards around the country—and Flynn is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is all bad news for Americans who do not want to see confidence in elections further undermined by armies of red-pilled poll watchers (NPR, 45.18) that are secretly taking orders from partisans to break poll watcher rules (CNN, 42.40). I’m one who feels sure that more conspiracy theorists with access to the machinery of elections (CNN, 42.40) will produce terrible outcomes for everyone (New Yorker, 40.27).
There is now precedent for January 6th insurrectionists to be barred legally from holding office.
Responding to a lawsuit filed by a citizen group, a judge in New Mexico ruled that a county commissioner named Couy Griffin had participated in sedition against the United States--and so was not eligible under the Constitution to serve as an elected official (New York Times, 42.92). This was the first time since the years after the Civil War (CNN, 42.40), when this restriction was put into an amendment and was used against former Confederates. Will other Republican officeholders, and maybe Trump, be similarly enjoined (Lawfare, -)?
Speaking of people who tried to overturn the government on January 6th, the leak of a rather large list of Oath Keepers (Associated Press, 48.69) revealed that members of the group are legion across most states, including in office and positions of authority (NBC News, 45.80). Between the leak, the arrest of group attorney, Kelly SoRelle (Washington Post, 40.07), and a judge shutting down leader Stewart Rhodes’s request for a trial delay (ABC News, 46.80), it wasn’t too great a week to be an Oath Keeper.
But the Proud Boys didn’t do much better: many were understandably upset when they learned that their leader, Gavin McInnes, had faked his livestreamed “arrest” and went on vacation to the south of France (Daily Dot, 37.32).
I was going to write up a bit more on the government documents (they’re nuclear again!) Trump tried to keep, but with late-breaking legal action, the target feels too moving-y to take on this evening.
So we’ll just go to a quick grab bag: The death of the Queen, who is a major character in QAnon lore, is getting Q world all amped up; a Google-sponsored influencer goes viral with ‘HOT GIRL’ anti-misinformation content on TikTok; $3.5 million is being invested in an effort to fight misinformation among voters of color; Dr. Fauci interview covers some of the ways he has been targeted by misinformation; the battle between misinformation-enabling technology and anti-misinformation technology heats up, slowly; Twitter goofed and let a QAnon account into its community anti-misinformation project; and Yahoo! buys a news credibility rating company to integrate with its news operation.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin