This Week in Misinformation: QAnon Does Dallas, Climate Content Crackdown, New York-Vaccines, WaPo-Tucker-J6, Elections, Flat Earth vs. Trees
4 November 2021
This Prism newsletter strives to be the paper of record for all that’s happening in misinformation. 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 four stories.
Hundreds of Q followers descended on Dallas to the site where President John Kennedy was shot—because they believed an influencer’s prophecy that JFK Jr. would appear there this week.
The influencer also said that JFK Sr. would “transfer” power to Donald Trump (@dappergander via Twitter), who would in turn become some kind of “king,” and Kennedy Junior would become Trump’s new vice president. (It’s very okay if you’re not following this, btw!) When no Kennedys showed up at the appointed hour (Daily Beast, 36.61), some in the crowd started saying the event would take place at a Rolling Stones concert that night, while still others said Keith Richards himself (Rolling Stone, 38.77) was the assassinated president’s long-deceased son.
The tragic QAnon “surfer dad” story took another twist, with his public defender and the prosecution agreeing to a delayed proceeding to examine whether his mental illness played a part in the murder of his children (VICE, 41.42). The attorneys on both sides will be sifting through gigabytes of data from the man’s devices to understand how he was radicalized, took his children to Mexico, and confessed to killing them—before later pleading not guilty.
In Q-adjacent news, a Republican running for the open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania came forward with an accusation that digital general Mike Flynn wanted him to gather “dirt” on, and possibly help blackmail, unnamed U.S. senators, U.S. congresspeople, judges, and state representatives so that they would support audits of the 2020 election (Newsweek, 39.36). This story is developing.
As world leaders gathered in Glasgow, Scotland to discuss the urgent task of averting climate change disasters through collective action, social media platforms touted new moves to stem the spread of climate-related misinformation.
Twitter, perhaps following the example of Google/YouTube banning climate misinformation outright last month, announced it was cracking down on incorrect climate content (Axios, 45.66) in advance of the COP26 summit (Twitter blog).
Facebook, which has been a hotbed of climate misinformation (The Guardian, 43.62) and corporate greenwashing (Time, 43.99), also released a statement about the company’s commitment to combating climate misinformation (C|NET, -). The main part of the press release was to announce an expansion of the Facebook Climate Science Information Center, which to date has not scaled to compete with the high volume of false content on the platform.
In a new study, the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that just ten publishers on Facebook were responsible for spreading about 70 percent of climate denialist content by engagement (Washington Post, 43.87). Alt-right standard-bearer Breitbart was singled out as the most problematic publisher (Forbes, 43.81).
Rhetoric against mandate vaccines heated up this week, with notable moves and countermoves in New York.
At one protest in Staten Island against schools working to help students to not get and transmit COVID, a featured speaker was recorded shouting that schools and town halls would be burned to the ground if things kept going as they were (Newsweek, 39.36). Polling from this week, perhaps not coincidentally, showed that attitudes toward violence among a solid share of Americans—Democrats, Independents, and particularly Republicans who watch Newsmax or OAN—have been trending more permissible, with many millions believing that “patriots” might need to hurt others to save the country (Newsweek, 39.36).
New York Governor Kathy Hochul launched an official campaign to combat COVID vaccine misinformation (via Twitter), right as vaccine mandates went into effect for large numbers of New Yorkers. Many New York City firefighters (CBS News, 47.00) and a small number of NYPD officers (@TristanSnell via Twitter), for example, made headlines for refusing to comply with the newly effective mandate.
The U.S. Supreme Court had a chance to strike down Maine’s vaccine requirement for health workers, but decided to let the mandate stand (Associated Press, 49.34). Meanwhile, with vaccines for kids ages 5-12 just approved (Washington Post, 43.87), we’re watching for the all-but-certain appearance of fear-inducing misinformation aimed at falsely persuading parents that vaccines are more harmful to children than COVID (NBC News, 45.67).
Investigative journalists with The Washington Post (43.87) published a three-part series about the misinformation surrounding the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
The Post’s chronicle covers the before, during, and after of “The Attack,” focusing on the Trump-amplified misinformation that propelled people to Washington and how belief in—and lip service to—the “stolen election” lie actually strengthened following January 6th. If you’re so inclined, compare the high-quality reporting ethic on display in the “Attack” series to the badly flawed insinuations (Poynter, 41.01) and near-total embrace of debunked election conspiracy theories (NPR, 46.21) that Fox News’s Tucker Carlson beamed out to his audience this week.
With the redrawing of district boundaries in Illinois, Republican representative and January 6th Committee member Adam Kinzinger declared he would not seek reelection (via Twitter). On the other side of the narrative battlespace, several election truthers who were in the crowd on January 6th won elections as Virginia delegates and a few local positions elsewhere (Washington Post, 43.87).
January 6th continued to change the lives of many foot soldiers and accomplices. A U.S. Capitol Police officer who was charged with obstructing justice has resigned from the force (The Hill, 44.81). The DOJ is seeking tough sentences for people who assaulted police (The Hill, 44.81) and arguing that military service is no reason for lighter sentences if found guilty of crimes during the mob attack (Newsweek, 39.36). A woman who publicly said she wasn’t going to jail for breaking into the Capitol was, in fact, sentenced to 60 days (Huffington Post, 39.71). One school teacher who quit after a photograph was published of him at the attack has now been elected to the board overseeing his old school (Newsweek, 39.36).
As for the commanders of the larger “stop the steal” operation, details of their activities are still coming out little by little. It was reported this week that a Trump attorney messaged a senior Pence advisor during the attack saying it was the Pence team’s own fault that his life was in danger (Washington Post, 43.87).
The epic, the splendorous, and the odd. So many lawsuits. Yep, it’s grab bag time: Tucker Carlson and the Telegram crew were both darkly intoning about Virginia election “fraud” until the point that Republican Glenn Youngkin was declared winner; unfounded rumors of irregularities abounded in the New Jersey election; Smartmatic sued Newsmax and OAN; Newsmax and Twitter both suspended reporter Emerald Robinson over misinformation; a Q fan in Michigan was stripped of official duties, then a voting machine disappeared; a Pennsylvania election official smeared by Trump and Giuliani on television sued over the two heart attacks he suffered; the final cost of the Arizona “audit” was nearly $9 million; Arizona AG Mark Brnovich “investigates” alleged irregularities (he also said on Fox, wrongly, that Biden could send parents to Gitmo over school board protests and announced he is suing the federal government over Biden’s vaccine policy); Trump allies organized a legal fund for his supporters who organized January 6th; the Pandora Papers story got mixed up with antisemitic conspiracy theorizing; and Flat Earthers now think trees aren’t real.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin