This Week in Misinformation: QAnon "Un-Storm," Russia Self-Deception, Platforms Potpourri
25 August 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 QAnon movement reckons with what we might term the “Un-Storm.”
The Q fairy tale’s founding prophecy in 2017 was that mass, cascading arrests of powerful people and other dramatic consequences, a “storm” that would publicly signal the downfall of the Cabal. Trump was the white hat president at the time, and the first arrest was plainly told to be Hillary Clinton. But the Hillary investigation was never even reopened, and now citizen Trump is being seriously investigated for crimes… so things have gotten tricky. Where QAnon diehards have landed, though, is to essentially rewrite what Q said about the arrests (@PokerPolitics via GNET), speculating that maybe the plan was always for Trump to be first. Minds at work.
QAnon also isn’t sure what to make of the announced retirement of arch-villain Dr. Anthony Fauci (Slate, 36.72), who has advised Biden and Trump and the five presidents before Trump on infectious disease issues. After becoming the subject of a good number of conspiracy theories (FactCheck.org, -) and after turning 81 years old, I think the man deserves to retire. Maybe he will write a book about how the COVID trauma strengthened misinformation culture (Axios, 44.23)?
No small number (FiveThirtyEight, 43.50) of QAnon-supporting fringe figures ran as Republicans in Florida this cycle, but lucky for us all they have mostly been defeated in the primaries (@AlKapDC via Twitter). Considering the unhinged reaction of some of their supporters to clear losses at the ballot box this week (VICE, 38.71), it’s a good thing these candidates are failing early.
Russia reckons with the self-deception that led it into strategic disaster in Ukraine.
This week saw hopeful headlines (Insider, 42.94) that Ukrainian forces are scoring dramatic wins against the Russian invaders, while The Washington Post (40.04) looks a few months back at how Russian blunders met Ukrainian valor to save Kyiv from falling back in March. The whole thing is a debacle of historic proportions for Vladimir Putin’s leadership.
One reason Russia finds itself in this mess? The Post (40.04) separately reported that Russian intelligence organizations misjudged what Ukraine was capable of and misled Putin and other leaders. Call it hubris—and a lesson for world leaders and other nations about the all-too-real dangers of misinformation.
There was a lot of tech platform news, but I’m not sure it rises to what I’d call “reckoning.”
For a couple of great survey pieces on what social media companies are doing about election-related lies as the midterms approach, check out Prism friend Stuart Thompson’s in The New York Times (42.93) and this one in The Washington Post (40.04).
Mark Zuckerberg made headlines by talking about the federal law enforcement request to control misinformation in the presidential campaign that led to Facebook’s decision to algorithmically throttle (Washington Times, 35.91) the New York Post (32.86) October 2020 article about Hunter Biden. The kind of thing that slips out when you go on Joe Rogan’s podcast?
A prominent hacker who was Twitter’s security chief blew the whistle on the company’s shambolic approach (CNN, 42.40) to a range of safety and security issues including election integrity (Tech Policy Press, -) and spam, the latter of which may have implications for Twitter’s lawsuit to force Elon Musk to honor his contract to buy it (CNN, 42.40).
So now we’re ready for the grab bag, yes? The U.S. Marine Corps is gearing up for media literacy; many states are bracing for misinformation-fueled election violence and seeing lots of election workers quitting before the midterms as false accusations of election fraud remain potent; a Colorado Republican sick of "stolen election" claims and January 6th denialism becomes a Democrat; alternative video streaming websites are awash in misinformation and hate content; the QAnon “Queen” of Canada’s cult is a terrible place for human beings; the 2,000 Mules crew gets profiled unflatteringly in Texas Monthly because they prey on Republicans for fun and profit; some of those convicted and charged for January 6th crimes are getting their merch on; Alex Jones is trying to hide from Sandy Hook families the money he made exploiting and deepening their grief; Florida residents plead guilty to stealing Ashley Biden’s diary and giving it to Project Veritas; Trump falsely alleges the search of his home was an ‘unwarranted’ ‘break-in’; and researchers uncover a large, not too successful pro-U.S. social media influence campaign.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin