The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
State fights back against election misinformation
WASHINGTON — On Oct. 10, a massive number of ballots were dumped in the middle of the highway in Shelton — or so Truth Seeker Freedom Lover claimed on Twitter with the hashtags #riggedelection, #voterfraud and #Trump2020.
“That is totally untrue,” said Peter Pavone, Shelton’s Republican Registrar of Voters.
“We don’t have any reports of that,” confirmed Shelton Police Detective Richard Bango.
“Absolutely no, that is not true,” said Margaret Clark, Shelton’s town clerk and keeper of ballots prior to Election Day.
Clearly, Truth Seeker didn’t let facts get in the way of a sensational tweet. And two days after Truth Seeker’s post, the tweet was flagged by Twitter as election misinformation. How did that happen? This year, foreign and domestic actors — including hackers, bots and yes, politicians — have been pumping out tons of misinformation related to voting and political candidates, but Connecticut election officials, law enforcement and social media companies are fighting back against the falsehoods. 2016 was a bad year for election misinformation and 2020 has unleashed another torrent of untruths shared online about impeachment, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and, of course, voting.
For the first time this election cycle, Connecticut used federal funds to hire a consultant to identify threats and disinformation online regarding the voting process. He monitors social media, websites like Reddit and 4chan and the dark web for chatter spreading misleading information about Connecticut elections. The Secretary of the State’s Office, which oversees Connecticut elections, declined to make the consultant available for an interview.
A report issued Friday by Cybersecurity Policy Adviser Art House for Connecticut’s Secretary of the State said election disinformation includes “sending social media messages from foreign intelligence agencies appearing to be from U.S. citizens sending untruths, embellishing truths and seeking to create ‘likes’ and forwards.”
“Such efforts might target specific demographic sectors, emphasizing issues intended to inflame passions and cause unrest,” House wrote. “Foreign actors also relay actual news, suggesting that disruptive events represent the ‘true character’ of a candidate or party, such as white supremacy coverage conveyed to a progressive community or references to left-of-center issues to conservative audiences.”
The key with disinformation is it is intended to deceive and usually is being spread in service of a harmful objective. Misinformation can include disinformation and honest mistakes.
Another example of disinformation this cycle: there have been robocalls in the U.S. conveying false warnings to citizens who vote by mail, such as threats that their taxes are likely to be audited or that they may suffer other consequences, House’s report said.
Truth Seeker Freedom Lover appears to be a Connecticut-based tweeter who has only 24 followers. His or her claim about the ballots in Shelton did not spread far.
Nevertheless, the Secretary of the State’s misinformation consultant located the tweet. Then, Gabe Rosenberg, communications director for the Secretary of the State’s Office, flagged the message for the nonprofit Center for Internet Security’s Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, emails obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media show. CIS notified the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Next, Twitter jumped into action and smacked a label on the Tweet, directing users to click to “learn how voting by mail is safe and secure.”
In response to misinformation on its platform, Twitter has altered how users share content, warns users if they’re sharing inaccurate information and has added labels to false claims about voting by mail and other messages this year. President Donald Trump’s inaccurate tweets about voting by mail have been labeled.
On Monday, Twitter announced it would begin to preemptively place statements about the election at the top of users’ feeds to debunk false claims and direct users to trustworthy information. On Election Night and after, the platform will label claims about who won the election until results have been called by authoritative sources.
Twitter’s civic integrity policy states “You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process.” Twitter can force violators to delete tweets, lock them out of their accounts or permanently suspend them via this policy.
Rosenberg described another piece of Connecticut election misinformation: a Facebook post claimed this fall dead people were receiving absentee ballots in the state, but the post was made before any absentee ballots were sent out by elections officials. The post was shared widely, until the Secretary of the
State’s Office flagged it to Facebook and the platform took it down.
From March to September, Facebook removed more than 120,000 pieces of Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook) content in the U.S. for violating its voter interference policies. It displayed warnings on 150 million pieces of content that were debunked by fact checkers. Facebook has also removed billions of fake accounts, helped people register to vote and directed users to a voter information center, according to Guy Rosen, Facebook’s Vice President for Integrity. Facebook is working with law enforcement and elections officials to identify and investigate misinformation and voter inference.
As Shelton’s town clerk, Clark distributes and receives the city’s absentee ballots. She receives a lot of calls from anxious voters wanting to know where their ballot is or whether it is safe to place it in the ballot drop boxes Connecticut is using for the first time this year, she said.
“There has a been a lot of misinformation,” Clark said. “We definitely have complete control of everything and everything is in order. I just want out residents to be comfortable with what they’re doing with their ballots.”