Read on Twitter
I feel I need to mention periodically the size of the gap btwn center-to-left political discourse, still debating Dem messaging & activists' slogans... & the reality of our actually-existing public sphere, where a shared FoxNews item re Fauci begging for caution over Xmas elicits
This is from a public, nominally non-political community Fb group in SWPA with over 50,000 members. It's lost cats & plumber recs & holiday charity drives. & this
I'm not cherry-picking replies here. 40+ people commented after the FoxNews item with Fauci urging caution over COVID was posted last night, and it's this all the way down
Seems like there's lots of reason to think the same factors that distorted political polling have been distorting opinion polling about coronavirus response, which is being experienced by so many through an intensely political frame
I worry that well-meaning efforts to analyze eg unexpected differential voter turnout [
] which don't acknowledge this
as the world in which many? most? Pennsylvanians are living in 2020: are like chatter re deckchair positioning with icy water already filling 7/8 of the ship
![I worry that well-meaning efforts to analyze eg unexpected differential voter turnout [] which don't acknowledge this as the world in which many? most? Pennsylvanians are living in 2020: are like chatter re deckchair positioning with icy water already filling 7/8 of the ship](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EphwH4iXYAYc6xn.jpg "I worry that well-meaning efforts to analyze eg unexpected differential voter turnout [] which don't acknowledge this as the world in which many? most? Pennsylvanians are living in 2020: are like chatter re deckchair positioning with icy water already filling 7/8 of the ship")
] which don't acknowledge this as the world in which many? most? Pennsylvanians are living in 2020: are like chatter re deckchair positioning with icy water already filling 7/8 of the ship
There was a single brave soul on the thread [name redacted in purple below] trying to push back against explicitly false info: & getting zero traction
![There was a single brave soul on the thread [name redacted in purple below] trying to push back against explicitly false info: & getting zero traction](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eph0iXTXYAASTkb.jpg "There was a single brave soul on the thread [name redacted in purple below] trying to push back against explicitly false info: & getting zero traction")
Purple-redacted-man is an absolute HERO. Stays calm. Respectful. Keeps engaging. But clearly *totally* ineffective in puncturing the seamless system of authorities/claims/frames that have been pushing & reinforcing COVID-denial & anti-Fauci/Wolf/Levine/Gates vitriol for months
Discussion of "voter fraud", restaurant limits etc looks similar. The partisan asymmetry of dis/misinfo is a huge barrier to beginning address it, in part b/c non-partisan academics & journalists find it hard to state directly the active role of Republican leaders in driving this
& given everything we know about impacts of time spent engaging in such spaces, to encourage unpaid & unprotected concerned citizens to try to push back seems beyond unethical. Would an IRB even approve a study that put participants in that position? https://twitter.com/yoyobeatty/status/1340048820609101829
, to encourage unpaid & unprotected concerned citizens to try to push back seems beyond unethical. Would an IRB even approve a study that put participants in that position? https://twitter.com/yoyobeatty/status/1340048820609101829
I don't have any answers, but writing/tweeting about electoral politics today without continually mentioning this context feels like its own kind of falsehood 
https://twitter.com/lara_putnam/status/1324727200877318144
https://twitter.com/lara_putnam/status/1324727200877318144
. @Mlsif pointed me to this interesting piece. The combination of tech-scaled sentry monitoring & structured channels to trigger & guide professional response/active intervention makes sense. Can a non-partisan, public defense system be built on that model? https://organizingupgrade.com/what-the-elections-taught-us-about-disinformation/
Picking this thread back up: I'm really convinced most political commentators/reporters who do not explicitly see disinfo as their beat are underestimating the epistemic fracture 2020 has caused: or more precisely, the #s of Americans 2020 has ushered across to the opposite side
It's the cumulative nature of circular impacts we need to see: as each time a trusted leader (like say, the president) pushes false claims (re COVID, election "fraud", etc) it ratchets forward followers' shift away from formerly trusted news/verification sources & toward new ones
That's been grimly on display in reactions to, eg, the Nashville suicide bombing. Here is a thread of a post & replies, from a public, nominally non-political community Fb group w 50,000+ members
The self-sealing nature of conspiracy theories is on display, as the fact that the MSM is not reporting the claimed Dominion voting machine tie-in become further evidence supporting claims that the actors responsible for the bombing are the same forces covering up vote fraud
One person (out of dozens commenting) shares a Snopes item debunking this claim: it has zero impact. Meanwhile "Seems like they will do anything to cheat I mean win. God help us all" gets many interactions, all Likes
In this stringthe cumulative force of each wave of 2020 events+spin/frame+disinfo is clear. "The Democratic Socialists laughed & downplayed riots while innocent people lost their businesses. They'll have four years to laugh at us now
" "Nashville mayor is part of Deep State"
the cumulative force of each wave of 2020 events+spin/frame+disinfo is clear. "The Democratic Socialists laughed & downplayed riots while innocent people lost their businesses. They'll have four years to laugh at us now" "Nashville mayor is part of Deep State"
And here Belief that mayors/govs lie about COVID cases adds to distrust. Distrust opens door to rejection of those parts of Nashville reporting that would disrupt desired narrative. All reinforcing partisan heuristic: "Let me guess Democrat" Democrat = automatically discredited
Belief that mayors/govs lie about COVID cases adds to distrust. Distrust opens door to rejection of those parts of Nashville reporting that would disrupt desired narrative. All reinforcing partisan heuristic: "Let me guess Democrat" Democrat = automatically discredited
I could go through same for recent posts re: Trump delay in signing budget deal, latest Wolf/Levine public health measures, etc etc
I am not mocking any of this. I am arguing that if you found yourself within this epistemic whirlpool, you would be held there by the same forces
I am not mocking any of this. I am arguing that if you found yourself within this epistemic whirlpool, you would be held there by the same forces
Note: same "democrats made a big mistake today" passage shared in our local group, screenshotted above, shared by OH GOP county committee. Party leaders validating conspiracy claims, & validating the sources of those claims. & ratcheting the gap wider https://twitter.com/KevinReuning/status/1343610794760667136
. Party leaders validating conspiracy claims, & validating the sources of those claims. & ratcheting the gap wider https://twitter.com/KevinReuning/status/1343610794760667136
Here's a perfect example of leaving the partisan/frame/disinfo cycle out of the story, & producing an account which is so partial as to count as misinfo itself. Was anti-mask dogmatism some kind of inevitable rural individualist cultural failing? Um, no? https://www.witf.org/2020/12/28/toxic-individualism-pandemic-politics-driving-health-care-workers-from-small-towns/
example of leaving the partisan/frame/disinfo cycle out of the story, & producing an account which is so partial as to count as misinfo itself. Was anti-mask dogmatism some kind of inevitable rural individualist cultural failing? Um, no? https://www.witf.org/2020/12/28/toxic-individualism-pandemic-politics-driving-health-care-workers-from-small-towns/
Think back to April, when handsewn masks were still being dismissed as foolish/inadequate by some authorities. Mask sewing was *embraced* by women in just the kind of Trump-supporting community that would later reject masks. It was DIY, love-your-neighbor https://monvalleyindependent.com/2020/04/mask-making-new-focus-for-local-quilting-group/
This article on the one hand has great reporting & quotes, & OTOH fails to name the crucial driver. Neighbors treating formerly trusted doctors "as the enemy", health directors "requiring guards": these things did not Just Happen, ! https://www.witf.org/2020/12/28/toxic-individualism-pandemic-politics-driving-health-care-workers-from-small-towns/
Picking this up again. We do not have the language or rhetorical frame available for non-partisan acknowledgment/analysis of the ongoing, intense, cumulative damage being done by partisan actors, for partisan gain, to our collective ability to discern & share facts. Like this
For the explanation of where the PA GOP state senators making the latest false claims about vote disparities got them, see this thread Serious political twitter might think, what a farce, let's stay focused on the real things that drive policy/elections https://twitter.com/jjabbott/status/1344035542233739270
Serious political twitter might think, what a farce, let's stay focused on the real things that drive policy/elections https://twitter.com/jjabbott/status/1344035542233739270
Meanwhile the PA GOP reps' allegation was shared four separate times in one day in the Fb group I've been profiling here. In one case, the very first comment pushed back: leading to onslaught of replies (note "Biden sniffs little girls": Q-adjacent claim that surged all summer)
So I shared an AP item debunking. These aren't organisms in a petrie dish I'm studying: they're fellow citizens in my region, being misled as they chat in the public square. I wasn't persuasive. The legitimacy of AP as source had been pre-shredded. This latest will just reinforce
Meanwhile elsewhere in the group this wk (just a sample there's more like it. Alongside menu specials & found dogs)
new survey confirms: this is not just me/here, it's our current natl stateWhat does a whole-of-govt/whole-of-society response to reality fracture look like?
How do we change infrastructure+incentives so that feeding distrust/disinfo doesn't pay so well? https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/951095644/even-if-its-bonkers-poll-finds-many-believe-qanon-and-other-conspiracy-theories
