This Week in Misinformation: Going Nuclear at Mar-a-Lago, Fighting the Law and Losing, Caring and Not Caring About Election Misinfo Online
11 August 2022
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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 FBI paid a visit to Donald Trump’s home in Florida to collect some things he owed the US. Government, and people made up some crazy stuff about it all.
After trying for months to get him to return classified documents, this week federal officials showed up to search Mar-a-Lago unannounced to get them (New York Times, 42.96). One major newspaper reported that "nuclear" documents and other things a former government employee should not have at their home ever, especially after leaving public service, were among the materials in question (Washington Post, 40.01). Some QAnon followers have already begun to draw a connection between the nuclear angle and the supposed Department of Energy credentials of their beloved “Q clearance patriot” (@AlKapDC via Twitter).
Trump was none too happy to be searched in this way and took to claiming it amounted to political persecution (Washington Post, 40.01)—despite there being no evidence that politics had anything to do with it. Attorney General Merrick Garland made a statement to clear the air about the Department’s actions, in which he also directly confirmed that he was the one to authorize the search warrant (Bloomberg, 45.43). In the name of transparency, Garland announced that Justice had asked the court to unseal the warrant and the list of items taken from Trump’s residence (Wall Street Journal, 44.87).
But by then days had already passed since the search was executed, and misinformation about it had flourished in the information vacuum. Trump (@RonFilipkowski via Twitter), his lawyers (@CPT_Cosmosis via Twitter), Fox News personalities (@Acyn via Twitter), TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (@JasonSCampbell via Twitter), Senator Rand Paul (@atrupar via Twitter), and others pushed the idea that the FBI agents planted physical evidence during the search despite presenting no basis for the assertion. As pressure mounted on Trump to release the warrant himself, a Fox News personality wrongly reported that the warrant would not have been left by the agents (@BradMossEsq via Twitter). Andrew Yang speculated that the warrant had been pursued and signed locally (via Twitter), though there was no reason to think so. Senator Marco Rubio called the warrant "fake" and suggested the FBI didn’t actually go to collect documents (@Acyn via Twitter).
Most alarming, though, was that the FBI search prompted talk of civil war that led to a conspiracy theory-minded man being killed when he tried to attack the feds where they work.
Pro-Trump forums online, and some of his prominent Republican supporters using their platforms, went all in on "civil war" as the cause of the week, to avenge the wrongs he suffered at the hands of federal law enforcement (NBC News, 45.80). The targets of violence weren’t too thought through (@stevanzetti via Twitter), but the threats were enough that authorities took note of them (ABC News, 46.80). Garland and FBI Director Wray (Fox News, 26.17), as well as the magistrate who signed the search warrant (VICE, 41.61), came in for particular attention from the would-be domestic terrorists.
This all came to a head Thursday, when according to the FBI a man attacked its Cincinnati field office with a nail gun. (It’s possible this person saw and believed one of the several YouTube gun-enthusiast videos showing that nail guns can be used to defeat ballistic glass of the type that protects federal offices, but it’s hard to say.) The man, Ricky Shiffer, was killed by law enforcement in the subsequent standoff.
Judging from his social media, it’s clear Shiffer was a believer in most of the major strands of election misinformation that circulate on the right (@Shayan86 via Twitter), and it seems he also was present at the Capitol on January 6th (NBC News, 45.80). Misinformation cost this man his life.
As the 2022 midterms heat up, tech platforms are either trying to do more or to cut back efforts to reduce the reach of elections-related information.
Twitter, which stopped enforcing violations of election-related posts within a few weeks of January 6th, has announced its renewed approach now that midterms are upon us. Voting rights experts do not think Twitter's policy will make enough of a difference (Reuters, 47.93), while people like Ted Cruz are already on record suggesting Twitter just wants to censor conservatives and won’t implement the policy fairly.
Facebook, on the other hand, is going the other way (Associated Press, 48.77) with respect to having and enforcing policies about what election-related misinformation will be allowed to spread there. Maybe Facebook is just over it?
You know it’s not Thursday night without the grab bag: Republicans make up a number of new IRS agents Biden is supposedly hiring to come after law-abiding conservatives for no reason at all; Alex Jones now owes $49.3M to the Sandy Hook families, and his texts have been turned over to the January 6 committee, but also he is making as much money as he ever has through InfoWars; the People’s Convoy ends in bitter recriminations; a Kremlin-backed propaganda campaigns taps a Pizzagate promoter; a French scientist had a little fun trying to pass off a cross-section of chorizo as a space telescope image of a star; whoever runs Trump’s account on Truth Social knows the quickest way to QAnon's hearts; Jordan Klepper of the The Daily Show learns about JFK Jr trutherism and gematria at a Trump rally in Wisconsin; 8kun owner Jim Watkins confirms his son Ron has gone to Australia; and the feds nabbed the cellphone of Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania as part of its fake electors probe.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin