This Week in Misinformation: Musk-Twitter Shotgun Wedding Drama, The 'Seize Voting Machines' Meeting; Abe Assassination; Scam Economy
14 July 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.
Elon Musk wants to not buy Twitter after all, but the company doesn’t look ready for a mutual breakup.
Citing the problem of bots, specifically that his questions about how many there are have not been answered to his satisfaction, Musk filed an SEC notice declaring his intent to terminate his contractual obligation to acquire Twitter (Associated Press, 48.80).
The problem for Musk is that the terms of the contract basically require him to purchase the company, and there isn’t a lot of room to wiggle out. “Specific performance,” it’s called. Twitter has sued Musk to force him to follow through on the purchase (New York Times, 42.95), making sure to point out the time he replied to its CEO’s post with a poop emoji, so we’ll all be witness to the Billions-esque legal drama as it unfolds in the coming weeks.
There was misinformation about Musk and Twitter in the mix as well, as a Musk impersonator account that had been suspended was made out to be the real Musk’s. To be clear: Twitter did not Ban Uncle Elon out of spite for bailing on the deal (Gizmodo, -).
Another week, another hearing, as the January 6th Committee laid out the conspiracy theory-fueled machinations aiding Trump’s quest to stay in power.
On December 18th, the Committee found, Trump spent his evening in a multi-hour, rolling meeting at the White House with three election truther interlopers who wanted to be empowered to investigate election hacking--and for the President to send the military in to seize machines--and the professionals on Trump’s staff who knew all that was bonkers (Washington Post, 40.08). Somewhere along the way, Rudy Giuliani showed up and derided the staffers for being unwilling to believe in fairy tales he thought could help Trump (CBS News, 46.07). When it was over and the interlopers didn’t get their way, Trump fired off his now-infamous “will be wild” tweet calling his supporters to DC.
Two reformed misinformation believers testified at this hearing. Stephen Ayres, who stormed into the Capitol with the rest of Trump’s mob (New York Times, 42.95) and Jason Van Tatenhove, who had served as a spokesperson for the Oath Keepers militia (PBS, 48.16), both of whom regretted having fallen for lies. Ayres explained that his path out of the rabbit hole was helped by realizing it was too big to have been carried out in the real world; the dozens of court cases Trump lost alone would have been impossible to make happen. Also on the Oath Keepers, their indicted leader offered to testify for the Committee, but attached some biggie conditions that are unlikely to be agreed to (Politico, 42.70).
Remember how part of the previous hearing was disputed, not under oath, by people claiming to have a different version of the Trump-in-the-limo story? The Committee this week secured testimony from Trump’s White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone, who more or less corroborated all that Cassidy Hutchinson said about what happened in the White House on and leading up to January 6th (NBC News, 45.80). Presumably this includes the most famously disputed account of the President losing his cool with a Secret Service agent who refused to take him to the Capitol to lead the insurrection in person. But it’s not just Cipollone; a DC police officer who had been in the presidential motorcade has also corroborated the details of Hutchinson's secondhand account of the incident (CNN).
Big world event with few immediate explanations on hand? You betcha there was misinformation about the assassination of Shinzo Abe.
The former Prime Minister of Japan was killed by gunshots from a handmade gun (Associated Press, 48.80), almost unthinkable in a country known for its stringent public safety measures.
Fake social media posts quickly cropped up, and one in particular falsely implicated a legendary Japanese video game developer. The rumor was shared by a French politician and may have been amplified by Greek and Iranian news outlets, and the innocent celebrity is now threatening to sue any who repeat the suggestion (BBC, 46.15).
You might have seen mention that QAnon had something to do with the assassin or his ideology, but those who know better have said this claim is unsubstantiated. Don’t retweet it, folks.
It’s grab bag time somewhere: a look at what the scam economy is costing us; a guy is found to have pretended that BLM and antifa targeted him; Daily Caller and Governor Kristi Noem hype fake fakeness about an Ohio child rape case; Trump lied about Elon Musk saying he voted for him (or Musk is lying, who’s to say, really); Steve Bannon is feeling cooperative as his trial for criminal contempt for flouting a January 6th Commitee subpoena creeps up; Overstock guy (and one of the election truther interlopers above!) Patrick Byrne also agrees to meet with Committee investigators; Meta is trying out a new AI thing to detect misinformation, and YouTube releases an API tool for researchers; 2,000 Mules inspires some sheriffs to pledge they will look into 2020 fraud; a decision about ballot drop boxes by the Wisconsin Supreme Court questions the legitimacy of the 2020 election; and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake preemptively accuses primary opponent of harvesting dead people’s votes.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin