Comment Misleading videos, re-released months after they were taken, made unsubstantiated claims that Republican voters were being shut out of the polls. Viral tweets turned early-morning mechanical problems with voting computers into elaborate allegations of systematic fraud. And users on the extremist pro-Trump forum The Donald urged armed intervention at vote counting centers in Georgia, advising: “If it gets violent, shoot first.” The deluge of misinformation hitting American democracy Tuesday showed how the myths created over the past two years have created an alternative online ecosystem where all adverse election results are suspect. The paranoia and preemptive effort to discredit the results of the midterm elections found perhaps the clearest expression in a headline on a website dedicated to spreading conspiracy theories about the pro-Trump siege of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, an attack promoted on large areas of online disinformation. “Expect theft,” the site warned. This expectation is no longer a fringe view. It is a political doctrine for entire regions of the country. Trump’s ‘big lie’ fueled a new generation of social media influencers “We’re not looking at isolated narratives or false claims here and there or that happen to go viral,” said Cindy Otis, a former technology executive and CIA analyst who now investigates disinformation. We’re looking at entire social media platforms, independent news commentary sites, and social media influencers that start with an ‘The election is rigged against conservatives’ point and cover the election from there.” In some cases, the online chat included calls for violence. The spurt to count storms in Georgia came in response to news that the deadline to mail in ballots had been extended for some voters in Cobb County after a logistical hiccup, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremists. At The Donald, where much of the planning for the Jan. 6 Capitol siege took place, some posters called on supporters in Georgia to “be ready to lock and load” around polling stations in the event of a “watch.” One user responded, “I hope for your sake, you’re willing to move on and not come back. Because there won’t be any second chances soon.” Wrote another, “We’re not doing this again!” Machine problems at some polling locations in Maricopa County, home to more than half of Arizona’s voters, have become a flashpoint for prominent right-wing voices who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election to claim without evidence that Tuesday’s vote was also rigged . County officials stressed that no one is being prevented from voting and that no one’s ballot was mishandled. Those preemptively hinting that something bad was afoot was Blake Masters, Arizona’s Republican candidate for the US Senate. Masters, who is vying to unseat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), has been the most prominent candidate to stoke suspicions, describing incidents of engineering failure as part of a Democratic ploy. “Hard to know if we’re seeing incompetence or something worse,” he wrote. “All we know right now is that the Democrats are hoping you’ll get discouraged and go home.” Efforts by election officials to create expectations about the time it will take to count ballots also fueled right-wing conspiracy theories. On the former president’s Twitter clone, Truth Social, his son, Donald Trump Jr., posted a collage of news headlines explaining that it’s normal for vote counting to last all night and said: “Vote to crush these bulls- –“. The tally since 2020 — and the “red mirage” of early polls indicating a Republican victory, only for subsequent polls to swing Democratic — has become an object of suspicion on the right, even as delays in counting mail-in and other ballots are largely the result of decisions in Republican states not to count ballots received by mail before Election Day. The expected delay in counting ballots, especially in close races, could lead to “an extended period of uncertainty” that could breed rumors, said Kate Starbird, an associate professor at the University of Washington who researches online disinformation. Because of the ongoing attacks on the election administration, he added, “the pump is already primed” for voters to believe such rumours. After initially refusing to take action against a wave of claims that the multi-day count would allow Democrats to cheat, Twitter implemented informational boxes on some of its most popular posts. “Democrats say it could take days and weeks to count mail-in ballots,” wrote one right-wing commenter, earning thousands of engagements, or retweets or likes. “Sounds like they need time to cheat.” Twitter did not respond to a request for comment. Social media platforms were divided on Tuesday over their approach to policing the same content spread online. This year, GOP election naysayers got a free pass from Twitter and Facebook Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has refused to remove or add content to a misleading video, taken during the Texas primary in March, that is now being recirculated on its platforms with unsubstantiated allegations of vote suppression of the GOP in Tuesday’s election. The video captured a poll worker appearing to tell Republicans they couldn’t vote because of staff shortages. The parties were responsible for hiring election judges, who had to be on site to conduct the vote. An Instagram account operated by a news agency that says it serves Jewish readers reposted the video without any context about the time or location of the alleged trouble. When the watchdog group Common Cause flagged the video on Meta, the company responded that the content did not violate its policies, according to communications reviewed by the Washington Post. A Meta representative did not respond to a request for comment about the video, which had achieved little engagement on the platform. Twitter made a different decision on the same video, applying a label informing users that the content is “presented out of context.” However, one of the posts sharing the misleading claims gained more than 5,000 retweets.
