This Week in Misinformation: The Maricopa Abides, YouTube Declares War on Vaccine Bunkum, Biden Snitching on Trump/J6, Mandates-Punches-Flash Mob
30 September 2021
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Reliability scores for media outlets in the summary are in parentheses in the citation for each, courtesy of the terrific folks at Ad Fontes Media.
Now, on to our top four stories.
As much as I’d love to start with anything else, there was simply too much reporting on the notional end of the Maricopa County “audit.” This landmark misinformation event, months in the making, culminated with the completion of a detailed report and an official public hearing in Phoenix. Warning: there is a lot here.
On the hearing’s eve, reporters published a draft copy of the Cyber Ninjas “audit” report that had leaked (Twitter account of Maricopa County), giving independent reviewers their first look at what would be submitted to the Arizona Senate (Twitter accounts of cyber expert @erratarob and @QOrigins). The preview wasn’t great for those believing the audit would undo what happened in Arizona.
During the hearing, Maricopa County officials (AZ Central, 43.97), local reporters (Twitter account of Arizona Republic reporter Jen Fifield), and data experts (Twitter account of researcher @get_innocuous) answered questions in real time about “anomalies” the presenters flagged. No instances of fraud or crime were alleged or proven.
The headlines of almost every media outlet conveyed that the retabulation of votes had given Biden a larger margin over Trump compared to the original count (New York Times, 44.72; Wall Street Journal, 46.02; Reuters, 48.93; ABC News, 46.65; NPR, 46.23; CNN, 43.55). [Over at OAN (26.41), the official broadcaster of the audit, headline writers went with “Hearing Takes Place.”] What wasn’t great, though, was how many outlets lent undeserved credibility to the entire operation by citing it as a “confirmation” of reality (Columbia Journalism Review, 43.60).
Donald Trump, skipping nary a beat, went right on asserting that the audit proved the entire election was stolen (Washington Post, 43.81), and no Republican other than those already on his bad side called him out for this egregious lie. His allies, in fact, doubled down on calls for “decertification” of Arizona’s slate of electors (images of posts by Mark Finchem, Wendy Rogers, and Marjorie Taylor Greene via researcher @PokerPolitics), told reporters they wanted to see a Trump-Biden “rematch” (Newsweek, 39.26), and said election officials and the media should be jailed (Twitter account of activist group @AccountableGOP)—or worse (image of tweet by Jarome Bell, who has since been suspended from Twitter via researcher @rothschildmd). Probably-Q Ron Watkins encouraged followers to turn on Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (images from Telegram via @truthfinder1235).
Arizona’s Republican governor and, interestingly, the Democratic Secretary of State who hopes to take his place both defended the election results. The two top candidates for governor on the Republican side, Matt Salmon and Kari Lake—who was endorsed this week by Trump and his misinformationist acolytes Mike Lindell and Mike Flynn—tried to use the report and hearing to continue casting doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s win.
Among the other fallout from these happenings: a falsified document purporting to be the “real” audit report (Substack page of researcher @get_innocuous), which the Cyber Ninjas had never laid eyes on, made the rounds with its insistence that Arizona’s results “should not be certified.”
Just a day before cutoff for this publication, YouTube managed to beat out Facebook in misinformation news—and for taking bold action against bad vaccine information, no less.
In a blog post, YouTube announced an “expansion” of its existing policies on COVID-19 misinformation to cover more vaccine content than before. The Google subsidiary said it would take down the channels of popular anti-vaccine activists like Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Washington Post, 43.81), among other measures.
According to The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which early this year published a list of the Internet’s most popular peddlers of vaccine misinformation, the channels of some on the list are still active with more than 100,000 subscribers. CNN’s Donie O'Sullivan and other misinformation watchers said the move came too late for many who chose to remain unvaccinated after listening to debunked vaccine “experts” on YouTube.
YouTube also made headlines for deplatforming Russia Today’s German channel (BBC, 46.41). Russia, the state owner of the Russia Today media operation, fired back a threat to ban YouTube within its borders over the action (Reuters, 48.93).
Last week we reported how Facebook had adopted a more aggressive defense against critical reporting; the company now appears to be supplementing this posture with a crackdown on leaks (Twitter account of New York Times reporter Davey Alba).
The investigation into the misinformation-fueled events of January 6th got a little easier for the House Select Committee this week, with President Biden indicating he would waive executive privilege (CNN, 43.55) and allow executive branch records to be turned over.
Former president Donald Trump, who stands to be most impacted by this decision, plans to attempt to sue to keep White House records on the Capitol attack out of Congressional investigators’ hands (The Guardian, 43.61).
Anticipating difficult subpoenas enforcement and foot-dragging, Committee leadership indicated that criminal contempt (Twitter account of CNN reporter Raju Manu) and other legal tactics (Politico, 43.40) are on the table for those who do not cooperate with requests.
The FBI got a real-time account of the Capitol attack from at least one informant among the pro-Trump Proud Boys, according to confidential documents obtained by The New York Times (44.72). Relatedly, New York City Bill DeBlasio is launching an investigation into whether the “Three Percent” militia has active members in NYPD’s ranks after unverified emails were released by an anonymous hacker who targeted the group (Gothamist, 44.60). TBD whether there are any details about the group’s known involvement in the January 6th attack.
Confused messaging leads to confused results, and some were so confused by vaccine misinformation that they attacked and harassed others and tried to persuade sick people to leave the care of hospitals.
The third shot landed this week, a COVID-19 immunity booster that was rolled out for some demographics. After some mixed messaging (The Economist, 44.14), President Biden got the jab on live television and encouraged everyone who can to be vaccinated (ABC News, 46.65)—but the event was held in front of a temporary backdrop left up from a global coronavirus summit at the White House, prompting conspiracies that the booster and his entire presidency are fake (PolitiFact, 45.15).
A Canadian man angry (!) about vaccine mandates repeatedly punched a nurse in the face (CNN, 43.55)—part of a wave of misinformation-fueled hostility toward health care workers (Associated Press, 49.36). A group of anti-mandate activists flash-mobbed a food court on Staten Island (Twitter account of person who happened to be at the mall that day). Other confrontations and controversies related to vaccine mandates also cropped up, from police officers saying they would quit over them (Wall Street Journal, 46.02) to the NBA’s struggles to get its employees to agree to the shot (Rolling Stone, 38.77).
Some anti-vaccine groups went so far as to tell people that hospital ICUs are dangerous for COVID patients and to encourage them to leave and get care elsewhere (NBC News, 45.66).
The result of America not taking full advantage of the vaccines its scientists developed at spectacular speed and at no small cost? The U.S. is performing much worse on the pandemic than other high-income countries (The Economist, 44.14).
This week in the grab bag: Wikipedia became an improbably model for accurate information online, a photo of horseback border enforcement goes viral for all the wrong reasons, Washington Post (43.81) dives deep on Colorado county clerk and Q folk hero Tina Peters, Sidney Powell is back in the news for contradicting her own self, anti-mask protesters make a scene at an Idaho school board meeting, and Marjorie Taylor Greene is realizing that many Republicans will probably stay home on election day if they believe their votes are not counted.
That, and a lot more, below. This is This Week in Misinformation.
-- Kevin