San Francisco Chronicle

Misinforma­tion ‘ supersprea­ders’ raise skepticism

- By Sheera Frenkel

On the morning of Nov. 5, Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, asked his Facebook followers to report cases of voter fraud with the hashtag Stop the Steal. His post was shared over 5,000 times.

By late afternoon, conservati­ve media personalit­ies Diamond and Silk had shared the hashtag along with a video claiming voter fraud in Pennsylvan­ia. Their post was shared over 3,800 times.

That night, conservati­ve activist Brandon Straka asked people to protest in Michigan under the banner # StoptheSte­al. His post was shared more than 3,700 times.

Over the next week, the phrase “Stop the Steal” was used to promote dozens of rallies that spread false voter fraud claims about the U. S. presidenti­al election.

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 rightwing personalit­ies with outsize influence on social media — helped spread the false voter fraud narrative that led to those rallies.

That group, like the guests of a large wedding held during the pandemic, were “supersprea­ders” of misinforma­tion around voter fraud, seeding falsehoods that include the claims that dead people voted, voting machines had technical glitches, and mailin ballots were not correctly counted.

“Because of how Facebook’s algorithm functions, these supersprea­ders are capable of priming a discourse,” said Fadi Quran, a director at Avaaz. “There is often this assumption that misinforma­tion or rumors just catch on. These supersprea­ders show that there is an intentiona­l effort to redefine the public narrative.”

Across Facebook, there were roughly 3.5 million interactio­ns — including likes, comments and shares — on public posts referencin­g “Stop the Steal” during the week of Nov. 3, according to the research. Of those, the profiles of Eric Trump, Diamond and Silk, and Straka accounted for a disproport­ionate share — roughly 6%, or 200,000, of those interactio­ns.

While the group’s impact was notable, it did not come close to the spread of misinforma­tion promoted by President Trump since then. Of the 20 most engaged Facebook posts over the past week containing the word “election,” all were from Trump, according to Crowdtangl­e, a Facebook owned analytics tool. All of those claims were found to be false or misleading by independen­t fact checkers.

The baseless election fraud claims have been used by the president and his supporters to challenge the vote in a number of states. Reports of malfunctio­ning voting machines, intentiona­lly miscounted mailin votes and other irregulari­ties affecting the vote were investigat­ed by election officials and journalist­s who found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

The voter fraud claims have continued to gather steam in recent weeks, thanks in large part to prominent accounts. A look at a fourweek period starting in midOctober shows that Trump and the top 25 supersprea­ders of voter fraud misinforma­tion accounted for 28.6% of the interactio­ns people had with that content, according to an analysis by Avaaz.

“What we see these people doing is kind of like setting a fire down with fuel, it is designed to quickly create a blaze,” Quran said. “These actors have built enough power they ensure this misinforma­tion reaches millions of Americans.”

In order to find the supersprea­ders, Avaaz compiled a list of 95,546 Facebook posts that included narratives about voter fraud. Those posts were liked, shared or commented on nearly 60 million times by people on Facebook.

Avaaz found that just 33 of the 95,546 posts were responsibl­e for over 13 million of those interactio­ns. Those 33 posts had created a narrative that would go on to shape what millions of people thought about the legitimacy of the U. S. elections.

A spokespers­on for Facebook said the company had added labels to posts that misreprese­nted the election process and was directing people to a voting informatio­n center.

“We’re taking every opportunit­y to connect people to reliable informatio­n about the election and how votes are being counted,” said Kevin McAlister, a Facebook spokespers­on. The company has not commented on why accounts that repeatedly share misinforma­tion, such as Straka’s and Diamond and Silk’s, have not been penalized. Facebook has previously said that Trump, along with other elected officials, is granted a special status and is not factchecke­d.

Many of the supersprea­der accounts had millions of interactio­ns on their Facebook posts over the last month, and have enjoyed continued growth. The accounts were active on Twitter as well as Facebook, and increasing­ly spread the same misinforma­tion on new social media sites like Parler, MeWe and Gab.

Dan Bongino, a rightwing commentato­r with a following of nearly 4 million people on Facebook, had over 7.7 million interactio­ns on Facebook the week of Nov. 3. Mark Levin, a rightwing radio host, had nearly 4 million interactio­ns, and Diamond and Silk had 2.5 million. A review of their pages by the Times shows that a majority of their posts have focused on the recent elections, and voter fraud narratives around them.

None of the supersprea­ders identified in this article responded to requests for comment.

One of the most prominent false claims promoted by the supersprea­ders was that Dominion voting software deleted votes for Trump, or somehow changed vote tallies in several swing states. Election officials have found no evidence that the machines malfunctio­ned, but posts about the machines have been widely shared by Trump and his supporters.

Over the past week, just seven posts from the top 25 supersprea­ders of the Dominion voter fraud claim accounted for 13% of the total interactio­ns on Facebook about the claim.

Many of those same accounts were also top supersprea­ders of the Dominion claim, and other voter fraud theories, on Twitter. The accounts of Trump, his son Eric, Straka and Levin were all among the top 20 accounts that spread misinforma­tion about voter fraud on Twitter, according to Ian Kennedy, a researcher at the University of Washington who works with the Elections Integrity Partnershi­p.

Donald Trump had by far the largest influence on Twitter. A single tweet by the president accusing Dominion voting systems of deleting 2.7 million votes in his favor was shared over 185,000 times, and liked over 600,000 times.

Like the other false claims about voter fraud, Trump’s tweet included a label by Twitter that he was sharing informatio­n that was not accurate.

Twitter, like Facebook, has said that those labels help prevent false claims from being shared and direct people toward more authoritat­ive sources of informatio­n.

Recently, BuzzFeed News reported that Facebook employees questioned whether the labels were effective. Within the company, employees have sought out their own data on how well national newspapers performed during the elections, according to one Facebook employee.

On the # StoptheSte­al hashtag, they found that both the New York Times and the Washington Post were among the top 25 pages with interactio­ns on that hashtag — mainly from readers sharing articles and using the hashtag in those posts.

Combined, the two publicatio­ns had approximat­ely 44,000 interactio­ns on Facebook under that hashtag. By comparison, Straka, the conservati­ve activist who shared the call to action on voter fraud, got three times that number of interactio­ns sharing material under the same hashtag on his own Facebook account.

 ?? Guillem Casasus / New York Times ??
Guillem Casasus / New York Times

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