BuzzFeed News: This Pro-Trump YouTube Network Sprang Up Just After He Lost. “A network of YouTube channels connected to the pro-Trump media outlet Epoch Times launched after Election Day as part of a disinformation campaign to keep President Donald Trump in office. Only one of the channels discloses its ties to the newspaper, which traffics […]
Spotted via Reddit: a database of election maps from a nonpartisan site. From the page: “Below you’ll find over 800 high-quality election maps available for you to view and download. Make sure to check out our User Guide if you have any questions about how to use the database.”
BuzzFeed News: “Stop The Steal” Groups Are Still Flourishing On Facebook. “A search on Facebook for the words ‘Stop the Steal,’ a rallying cry that the mob who forced Congress to flee chanted, turned up dozens of places where new plots could be coordinated. There are at least 66 groups dedicated to the slogan, the […]
South Florida Sun-Sentinel: A mysterious gap in COVID-19 deaths appeared in Florida before the presidential election. “An astonishing pattern has emerged in Florida’s COVID death tally — one that suggests the state manipulated a backlog of unrecorded fatalities, presenting more favorable death counts in the days leading up to the 2020 presidential election. At issue […]
Daily Beast: The Hottest Campaign Ads on Twitter Didn’t Really Work: Study. “At various junctures during the 2020 campaign an attack ad would pop online that had observers on Twitter buzzing about how devastating for Donald Trump it would be. Except, more often than not, the ads weren’t effective, at least not for the nominal […]
Politico: Google will end political ad ban this week. “Google’s decision — which marks the return of political ads on high-profile sites like YouTube and Google search pages — comes days before the Electoral College votes will be tallied, as well as one month before the Georgia Senate runoffs, leaving campaigns and committees some time […]
AP: Weeks after election, YouTube cracks down on misinformation. “More than a month after the U.S. presidential election, YouTube says it will start removing newly uploaded material that claims widespread voter fraud or errors changed the outcome. The Google-owned video service said Wednesday that this is in line with how it has dealt with past […]
New York Times: How Misinformation ‘Superspreaders’ Seed False Election Theories. “New research from Avaaz, a global human rights group, the Elections Integrity Partnership and The New York Times shows how a small group of people — mostly right-wing personalities with outsized influence on social media — helped spread the false voter-fraud narrative that led to […]
CNET: The election’s over, but baseless voter-fraud claims still roam the web. “The online nonsense has created a massive game of whack-a-mole for social media companies, which are shellacking problematic posts with labels that say the claims of fraud are disputed and voter fraud is rare, and that include a link to the CISA’s page […]
Washington Post: Trump tunes out pandemic surge as he focuses on denying election loss. “Since Election Day and for weeks prior, Trump has all but ceased to actively manage the deadly pandemic, which so far has killed at least 244,000 Americans, infected at least 10.9 million and choked the country’s economy. The president has not […]
Vice: YouTube Is Doing Very Little to Stop Election Misinformation From Spreading. “Here’s what happens if you post election disinformation on YouTube right now: The video will not be taken down, even if it includes multiple false claims. A small fact-checking label may be applied and the video probably won’t be promoted in YouTube’s recommendations […]
NBC News: Misinformation by a thousand cuts: Varied rigged election claims circulate. “An analysis of post-election conversations in social media, broadcast, traditional and online media by the intelligence platform Zignal Labs reported more than 4.6 million mentions of voter fraud in the week after Election Day. The conversation centers on more than 20 distinct narratives […]
CNET: Misinformation about election fraud has flooded the internet. Here’s how to spot false reports. “You can’t stop your Uncle Mike from posting misleading memes, but you can keep yourself informed. That way you’ll be well positioned to avoid spreading misinformation yourself. Media literacy experts suggest several techniques for vetting information you find online.”
Washington Post: While America fixated on election results, Americans battled covid-19. “It was early in the morning on Tuesday when Trona Leaper’s doctor told her to check herself into the hospital to be treated for covid-19. She had been coughing and feeling not quite right since the previous Thursday; by Monday, she had been prescribed […]