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Why do millions of Americans doubt that Biden is the legitimate winner of the US election? Disinformation campaigns have played a major role, @mckayspencer and I argue in The Conversation. 1/n
https://theconversation.com/trumps-lies-about-the-election-show-how-disinformation-erodes-democracy-150603 @ConversationCA @ubcnews @UBCPoliSci
https://theconversation.com/trumps-lies-about-the-election-show-how-disinformation-erodes-democracy-150603 @ConversationCA @ubcnews @UBCPoliSci
The disinformation we refer to isn't just the false claims about what happened in the recent election, but the longstanding and intentional attacks on the American public's ability to have respectful, inclusive, truth-tracking political discussions. 2/n
Our argument builds on a recent article in @PRQjournal. Examining Russian disinfo campaigns, we show how they corrode moral respect, promote distrust toward institutions that produce high-quality information, and crowd out legitimate voices https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1065912920938143 3/n
But these sorts of disinformation in the US primarily come from domestic rather than foreign actors, and from the right, as recent events clearly show. See, for e.g., research by @YochaiBenkler @JonasKaiser @BKCHarvard https://cyber.harvard.edu/publication/2020/Mail-in-Voter-Fraud-Disinformation-2020 4/n
A new development in 2020 - social media platforms took disinfo much more seriously than 2016. In fact, they took many actions we proposed in our article, albeit the ones that fit easiest with their attention-for-sale business model. https://www.eipartnership.net/policy-analysis/platform-policies @2020Partnership 5/n
The result of platforms' increased editorial judgment? Republican/populist attacks, similar to longstanding attacks on responsible journalism. And also an exodus to Parler and other alternative platforms. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/11/24/21579357/parler-explained-twitter-facebook-censorship-donald-trump
It will be interesting to see whether Republican messaging or platform policies change when Trump leaves office. Much seems baked in. But Trump works like anti-matter to democratic deliberation (remember those candidate debates!), and so a great deal depends on what he does next.
