The 2020 Presidential Election Misinformation, disinformation and fake news on social media
Every day we are exposed to an onslaught of misleading, dishonest and downright fake news just about everywhere we look. Sadly, propaganda “news” has become mainstream from traditional sources like cable news outlets to social media networks. Add in the masses of citizen journalists on social media creating, editing, and sharing clickbait during the most contested Presidential election in a generation and the result is a mountain of hyper partisan, deceptive and occasionally amusing social media news. In our increasingly Divided Red and Blue States of America how do we distinguish which source of news on social media are telling the truth or at least more leaning towards the truth? Do we agree with the social networks that are increasingly censoring content they don’t like? One side has to be wrong, right? The 2020 Presidential election presents a perfect opportunity to analyze post-election political news on social media.
Leading up to and following election day, the President has tweeted around the clock about the strong possibility for and growing evidence of election fraud. Twitter has flagged over 300,000 tweets related to the Election according to Newsweek The President’s tweets have been flagged 51 times leading up to the election including here with the tag, “This claim about election fraud is disputed” if you click on the tag the following tweet appears:
The tweet leads to the article “US Officials Promising Most Secure Election in Modern History? by Voice of America, a reputable and neutral source of news. Chris Krebs, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency(update: he has been fired)7, is the official who mentions that the election will be very secure. Audits will be easier and vote tampering limited as new protocols have been implemented in response to past foreign attempts to meddle in our elections. This is Twitter telling you that President’s Trump tweets are misleading. Many will agree with Twitter’s relatively new policy, but many others will disagree calling it targeted censorship while plenty of deceptive, controversial and hateful speech remains uncensored on the platform.
Mainstream media like the New York Times, unanimously claim there is no fraud and cite partisan state election officials including a Republican City Commissioner in Philadelphia as proof. Quoted officials aggressively deny any misconduct and claim the elections were both fair and transparent. The media is lockstep in denouncing Trump’s voter fraud allegations and report there is no basis for any legal challenge.
Many report that the President is spreading unfounded conspiracy theories (CNN) and even creating a national security risk (The Guardian) by not conceding immediately. All of the mainstream news organizations have made declarations that Biden has won the battle and is the legitimate President.
As we have seen over the past four years, Trump is a fighter and will take the fight to the end. He has amassed a huge legal team headed by former NYC Mayor Giuliani, to challenge results in major battleground states, with an initial focus on Pennsylvania.
Trump’s Twitter feed is his biggest promoter which allows him to taunt the “Corrupt Establishment Media” with his assertion of massive voter fraud and claims of a landslide victory including the popular vote, if only legal ballots are counted. His defiance and constant tweets are strongly backed by a large conservative media apparatus, that is increasingly censored by the both the establishment media and the Big Tech Masters of the Universe (Google, Facebook and Twitter). Just recently, The Washington Post, reports that Trump’s relationship with Fox News soured in part due to the network’s first call for Biden in Arizona on election night.
This post by The Federalist, a reliable conservative news outlet, lays out the legal case for the Trump campaign in contesting the Pennsylvania election through the courts. The focus of the case is on how the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unconstitutionally changed the state’s election law allowing mail-in ballots to arrive three days after the election overriding the state legislature. The state legislature, as in most states, has the sole authority to make changes to election law. Former New York City Mayor Giuliani who leads Trump’s legal fight (YouTube Channel) reports to have thousands of pieces of evidence that the mainstream media will not cover nor acknowledge. He describes incidents of voter fraud from postal and poll workers, including many Democrats, to election and political officials and claims to have amassed thousands of sworn affidavits.
Sidney Powel, a Trump legal team attorney, in an interview on Fox Business’s YouTube Channel, alleges that the electronic voting system, Dominion, used in many states, was compromised and unlawfully changed at least hundreds of thousands of votes, if not millions. She vows to expose all officials involved though does not provide substantial evidence.
So are these supposedly more credible news reports on social media deceptive or misleading? The memes are amusing and represent fake news at its best, but so far we can only imply that news that reports no evidence nor a legal basis, appear to be misleading. Their refusal to report on credible accounts of fraud are both worrisome and irresponsible. Likewise, reports and tweets of Trump being cheated out of the election and winning in a landslide, also appear to be misleading. Over the next few weeks, the burden of proof lies on President Trump’s legal team to lay out its case that presents convincing evidence of unlawful misconduct and fraud which would alter the outcome of the election. There will likely be ups and downs for both sides but the Constitution provides the remedy in cases like this all states are required to certify the electors by December 12. On or before inauguration day, one side will claim victory but fake news will charge on. So get involved, be nice , have fun and of course be convincing creating funny memes, sharing and retweeting sensational propaganda, curating your own “news” and maybe even monetizing your new skills in the #FakeNewsRevolution
