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While this piece is deeply troubling for different reasons, one thing stands out: it is not polite to take credit for an entire field of research mostly developed by women researching journalism and disinformation. https://twitter.com/mollyesque/status/1357316957406650368
In fact, a significant finding from our recent preliminary research shows that civil society orgs should not be quiet, but rather should be strategic and tactical when responding to falsehoods. Simply claiming your strategy worked because your team won doesn’t make it true.
Applying the findings from one field of research in another setting requires doing new research. We can ask “should civil society handle disinfo like journalists do?” But that’s not the same as helping civil society develop better practices that come from experience.
But this is where the story really over reaches to give lone credit to what has been an entirely unwieldy and multi-stakeholder approach led by civil society organizations to detect, document, and debunk misinfo. These groups deserve more credit.
While it’s nice to believe that a weekly zoom call led to massive on the ground coordination, where advice was given and taken, that’s a fiction.
I know of at least two other big initiatives that helped to build resiliency among get out the vote campaigns.
I know of at least two other big initiatives that helped to build resiliency among get out the vote campaigns.
There were also hundreds of organizations, and a few university centers, that helped poll workers and community based orgs to counter disinfo.
Social change isn’t orderly or as command/control as this Time article suggests. https://www.protocol.com/election-day-2020-misinfomation-disinformation
Social change isn’t orderly or as command/control as this Time article suggests. https://www.protocol.com/election-day-2020-misinfomation-disinformation
Aside from attributing lots of credit to a few individuals, this article has provided a necessary fiction for the right wing about the left’s secrecy and underhandedness, at a time when so many researchers are trying to do this work with integrity and objectivity.
Disinformation research is not a political strategy.
We, the researchers, study the features of our current communication infrastructure and the tactics used by media manipulators in order to offer up a whole-of-society approach to stopping misinformation-at-scale.
We, the researchers, study the features of our current communication infrastructure and the tactics used by media manipulators in order to offer up a whole-of-society approach to stopping misinformation-at-scale.
From my recollection, protesters were eager to get out in the streets on Nov 4, but also didn’t want to exhaust people power, so local organizers called for protecting counting sites. We saw numerous counter-protests against stop the steal too. This article doesn’t mention them.
As well, there has been public pressure on social media companies for 4 years. That effort has largely been led by @changeterms #StopHateforProfit and a well-developed disinfo beat across newsrooms.
Which is all to say that the grassroots can’t be contained by a few network initiatives. Democracy is a messy, local, and contingent process.
Narratives about “what worked” in 2020 will persist, but those who claim to have effectively countered disinformation are suspect to me.
Narratives about “what worked” in 2020 will persist, but those who claim to have effectively countered disinformation are suspect to me.
The curious thing about hindsight is the steps taken in the past always appear a bit more clear, ordered, and intentional. There will always be some who suggest that, if not for them, all would have been lost. It truly takes everyone to fight disinformation strategically.
As disinformation becomes the fight of 2021, keep in mind there are many things everyone can do: https://mediamanipulation.org/tip-sheets/how-civil-society-can-combat-misinformation-and-hate-speech-without-making-it-worse
If journalists had been looking to write about the organization of dems during the election campaign, there was nothing secret about this or other initiatives.
Just like disinformation campaigns, the journalist’s frame makes basic organizing into a dangerous conspiracy.
Just like disinformation campaigns, the journalist’s frame makes basic organizing into a dangerous conspiracy.
Soon, we will see follow up articles throwing certain funders into the mix, alongside participating orgs. Many of whom were doing 100 different things a week to make the election as fair as possible.
Here is a different telling of the same story that acknowledges how local organizers wanted to focus on protesting at vote counting sites. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/democrats-trump-election-plan.html
The nytimes story also shows who was behind the messaging strategy about “avoiding language of coup.” In hindsight that seems like a very short-sighted comms strategy, since there was an actual attempt at a coup because few were willing to label Trump’s actions as such.
One could easily write a counter-history that points to what really happened, without ascribing the outcome to a few who seek credit, but rather foregrounds local activism, especially as so many organizers turned their attention to Georgia once the national election ended.
