The 2020 presidential election was not over when the elections closed on Tuesday evening. The winner's appointment - President Donald Trump or challenger Joe Biden - is taking longer than in the recent election as the coronavirus pandemic has spurred a surge in postal voting requests. By Monday, over 96 million Americans had voted, representing more than 45% of the registered US vote. Many of them have emailed voting slips that will take some time to count.
Until the count is final, the public can expect wild rumors, false reports, and premature declarations of victory, election security experts warn. Take a look at what Twitter has to do with tweets suggesting polls are open the day after the election. YouTube also fought against misinformation and suppressed the transmission of streams fake election results. Even the president posted news about the election results Social networks felt the need to be labeled.
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Some of it is disinformation or intentionally false and misleading content. Misinformation is a broader term that describes incorrect information regardless of whether the person sharing it knows it is wrong. Some bad information comes from fake accounts that may no longer be available in Russia. Some can come from politicians themselves. Almost everything is amplified by people who don't know it is wrong.
As usual, misinformation spreads through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Reddit. (Big social media companies have plans to do this Combat misinformation.) Group messages on WhatsApp, Telegram and other services also amplify misinformation. This also applies to political comments on YouTube and podcasting platforms as well as to television and radio stations on which political talk shows take place.
Continue reading:: Facebook, Twitter plan to warn you when politicians declare victory ahead of time
Chris Krebs, the country's top election security officer, urged people to be careful about reporting election results, saying in a remark at a cybersecurity conference, "Think before you share." His agency, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has launched a website called Rumor Control to help voters find out whether allegations of election fraud and manipulation are correct.
However, you don't have to get caught up in the expected deluge of speculation and outright lies. This allows you to spot information that fails the odor test.
How can I spot election misinformation?
You can't stop your Uncle Mike from posting misleading memes, but you can keep up to date. This way, you are well positioned to avoid spreading misinformation yourself.
Media literacy experts suggest several techniques for reviewing information that you find online. First, check the source of the information yourself. You can search online for information on possible prejudices or political affiliations that were not apparent from the original post. Some services, including AllSides, NewsGuard, and Ad Fontes Media, have bias ratings for news agencies and individual articles. The Pew Research Center has mapped news consumers' political leanings to the outlets they trust most, which can provide you with additional context.
Next, check to see that you can find the same information reported elsewhere - rather than just a message based on the first one you saw. If you can't confirm the facts elsewhere, it's a good idea to check if you can find any evidence that the report is a false report.
If the content includes an image, as is often the case with memes, you can do a reverse google image search on the photo and learn more about where it came from and what it really shows. The photo may be out of context or from an old message on a completely different subject. You can also check out websites like Snopes that debunk or review stories and memes, or a political fact check website such as B. PolitiFact from the Poynter Institute, which helps you determine if a post or story is likely to be incorrect.
If you want to dig deeper, you can call the reference desk at your local library.
How could misinformation potentially worsen in elections?
Yes, it was bad. According to academic researchers and US intelligence agencies, both government-sponsored actors and shady, click-seeking website owners have created and disseminated misleading or completely false information for years. This deliberate effort is called disinformation.
But it got worse. "The simplest prediction I can make for you is that we will see a lot more misinformation," said Dan Wallach, computer science professor at Rice University, of the 2020 elections. And this time around, it's not just troll farms that are being sponsored by the Russian government, he added. "I can see many countries that decide that it is worth manipulating us for them."
Waiting for the results of this election will leave many of us in a heightened state of anticipation. Between the coronavirus pandemic and our extremely polarized politics, we are desperately looking for answers. Just as research shows that emotional arousal makes younger and older people more susceptible to financial fraud, this mindset could make it even worse for us to separate fact from fiction. And it could lead to someone inadvertently sharing the bad information, adding to the huge pile of misinformation that is already present on the internet.
People who create fictional news reports, misleading memes, and conspiracy theories know that we are all vulnerable. It could get even easier to get us to share their posts when voters are crying out (at least in their hearts) for election results.
What's in it for people who start with misinformation after the election?
If the votes have already been cast, you may be wondering if it matters if your Uncle Mike posts a false report of electoral fraud on Facebook. Here's the problem: misinformation can still cause harm after the surveys are completed. Most importantly, election security experts say it could cause people to lose confidence in the election results.
The acceptance of postal votes in the 2020 US presidential elections has already led to this false reports of rampant electoral fraudand increased concerns about restricted access to ballot boxes and polling stations. An increasing deluge of misinformation aims to delegitimize the voting process in general, according to the July study by scientists from the Electoral Integrity Project. As a result, the public is prepared for reports of voting irregularities.
The problem will be figuring out which reports are true and which are false.
