Read on Twitter
Good morning, and happy Election Day. I will be threading corrective tweets and other misinformation I'm seeing throughout the day here. And obligatory reminder: Please do not share anything today that you haven't verified directly yourself
First up, here's a tweet from the Michigan Attorney General. Text messages are spreading the unverified rumor that there are "ballot sensor issues" in the state. In general, don't fall for copy-paste/chain email-like text msgs today, esp from "a friend" https://twitter.com/MIAttyGen/status/1323392797697867778
This tweet from Philly GOP misleads in pushing the idea that a "long line" equals voter suppression. A long line is not proof of that, but the wink & construction of the sentence as a question may evade let it evade misinfo policy enforcement from the social networks.
This tweet got more than 1,000 interactions in less than an hour. The claim that National Guard troops have been called in to respond to systemic and planned left-wing activist violence is without evidence.
The National Guard HAS been called to assist on Election Day, but we do NOT know yet whether there will be unrest. In general be wary of direct causal claims like in the tweet above. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/us/national-guard-election.html
This is the 3rd highest engagement tweet in the last 3 hours—4,000 RTs in just an hour. Be wary of claims that "polling places are closed" without verifying it yourself, much less that that directly means that it is to suppress a vote. + suspicious construction here: "my friend"
My last three tweets pointed out misleading information from Pennsylvania. It's probably the biggest battleground state to win today, and new research we got yesterday showed it has the highest-volume voting misinfo of any state. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/02/us/trump-biden-election/battleground-states-are-seeing-the-most-voting-misinformation (Ty @ZignalLabs)
A Twitter hashtag #StopTheSteal appears to tie together multiple tweets, many of them asserting without evidence that Democrats are "stealing" the election. Just eyeballing the accounts I can tell you some people using the hashtag have records of spreading misinformation.
I'm reaching out to Philly GOP because its Twitter account has tweeted multiple times this morning making claims I can't verify. cc @TwitterSupport
Be wary of this tweet from Mike Roman (now at >10K interactions), because we don't know for sure that the flyer being handed out is the one in the first picture.
Also: Claims of one-off voting messiness is NOT evidence of systemic and widespread voter fraud.
Also: Claims of one-off voting messiness is NOT evidence of systemic and widespread voter fraud.
Wow I am a total fan of the Michigan AG. She is doing great using social media to debunk reports to her office. Here is another example. Don't fall for robo-calls before you verify the information! https://twitter.com/dananessel/status/1323651527723147265
And here is the Philly DA’s office debunking Mike Roman’s assertions. Cc @TwitterSupport https://twitter.com/philadao/status/1323644899967881219?s=20 https://twitter.com/daveyalba/status/1323655425850515457
A big one from Philly that I was working to confirm, but @JaneLytv scooped me. Follow Jane, my personal hero and idol. https://twitter.com/JaneLytv/status/1323673316897468417
A whole freaking article has been published from The National Pulse on the PA poll watcher, which @JaneLytv already debunked. (See tweet above.) It already has 3.6k engagements on Twitter and >1k engagements on Facebook, per CrowdTangle.
The volume of misinformation coming out of PA is really sticking out. Unverified claims of long lines, fraud and voter suppression in Pennsylvania have reached a whopping 33,048 MENTIONS, per @ZignalLabs. Reminder that Pennsylvania may be the No. 1 battleground prize today.
Another common misinformation peddler, The Gateway Pundit (>1.5K FB interactions), has published another whole freaking article on BLM protesters "crashing" an NC polling place.
This AP fact check makes clear that that's...not what happened. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9641346694
This AP fact check makes clear that that's...not what happened. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9641346694
10 million creepy "stay safe/stay home" robocalls have gone out to voters in October, according to data from YouMail. (H/T @tonyromm who reported this first) https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions/robocalls-grab-the-attention-of-election-officials
This tweet is racking up interactions—228K views so far. Listen to the vid and the woman appears to be telling “poll observers” to not tell others how to vote. The claim in the tweet is unsubstantiated. H/T @mmfa
"He is not one of our poll workers and there is no one with that name registered to vote in Erie PA," Amy Dalessandro, election coordinator at Erie County Courthouse, said by email of the original Instagram user.
“This morning we had a glitch getting one of the machines up & running, but it has been running all day," Donald Frederickson, solicitor for Lackawanna County Board of Elections, told me. This was a glitch that was resolved before 9AM or so. Tweet below is 2PM.
This tweet from Philly GOP is blowing up, in large part because it is embedded in a Gateway Pundit article. This is obviously unverified and speculative, and I've asked @twittersupport if they are going to label this.
In Virginia Beach, Va. via local news: Election officials said there was a video circulating showing a person burning ballots—but they were sample ballots, officials said.
Still, officials are “looking into the illegal burning,” the city said. https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/virginia-beach/virginia-beach-election-day-updates/
Still, officials are “looking into the illegal burning,” the city said. https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/virginia-beach/virginia-beach-election-day-updates/
via Visual Investigations hero, @_stella_cooper: Stella and Arielle go deep on these images, which @Twitter has now labeled as "manipulated." https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions/trump-ally-tweets-misleading-images-of-philadelphia-voting
Finally have more info on this. Via Jane Roy, comms for philly DA: “we have determined the person photographed is an election worker who is authorized to transport Mail-in ballot drop boxes.” https://twitter.com/daveyalba/status/1323759284572823554
Full statement from Philly DA’s office to us. “So far, none of the posts being shared by Philly GOP were reported by them for investigation to the District Attorney’s Office Election Task Force—which I would think raises questions about the actual intent behind these posts.”
From popular left-wing Facebook page "The Other 98%" —an assertion, without evidence, that "Trump's cells have been activated," implying nefarious coordination. There's just no proof to make this claim.
Just in: Twitter hid a tweet from Trump behind a label. He falsely claimed that the election was being stolen. Twitter also restricted users' ability to like and share the post.
