No Election Winner Yet: How To Spot Misinformation While Waiting For Results

The 2020 presidential election was not over when the polls closed Tuesday night. Calling the winner, President Donald Trump or challenger Joe Biden, is taking longer than in recent elections because the coronavirus pandemic has caused an increase in requests for absentee ballots. More than 96 million Americans had voted as of Monday, representing more than 45% of registered votes in the US, and many deliver vote-by-mail ballots that will take time to count.

Until the count is final, the public can expect to hear wild rumors, false reports and premature declarations of victory, warn election security experts. Just look at what Twitter had to deal with, like tweets suggesting that the polls would be open the day after the elections. YouTube also fought misinformation, reducing streams false election results. Even the president published messages about the election results that social media felt necessary to be tagged.

Some of this will be deliberately false and misleading content or misinformation. Disinformation is a broader term that describes incorrect information regardless of whether the person sharing it knows it is false. Some bad information will originate from fake accounts, possibly without Russia. Some may come from the politicians themselves. Almost everything will be amplified by people who do not know that it is false.

As usual, the disinformation will spread through social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit. (The major social media companies have plans to fight misinformation.) Group messages on WhatsApp, Telegram, and other services will also increase misinformation. So will political commentary on YouTube and podcasting platforms, as well as radio and television stations that host political talk shows.

read more: Facebook and Twitter plan to warn you if politicians declare victory prematurely

Chris Krebs, the nation’s top election security official, urged people to be cautious about reporting election results and said in remarks at a cybersecurity conference: “Think before you share.” His agency, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, launched a website called Rumor Control to help voters determine whether claims of voter fraud and vote manipulation are accurate.

However, you don’t have to get caught up in the expected deluge of outright speculation and falsehoods. This is how you can detect information that does not pass the smell test.

How can I recognize electoral misinformation?

You can’t stop your Uncle Mike from posting misleading memes, but you can stay informed. That way, you are well positioned to avoid spreading misinformation.

Media literacy experts suggest several techniques for sifting through the information you find online. First, check the source of the information itself. You can search online for information about possible biases or political affiliations that were not obvious in the original post. Some services have created bias ratings for individual news outlets and stories, including AllSides, NewsGuard, and Ad Fontes Media. The Pew Research Center has mapped the political leanings of news consumers to the media they trust the most, which may give you additional context.

Then see if you can find the same information reported elsewhere, and not just a news story based on the first one you saw. If you cannot confirm the facts elsewhere, it is a good idea to see if you can find any indication that it is a false report.

If the content contains an image, as memes often do, you can do a reverse Google image search on the photo and find out more about its origin and what it actually shows. You may find that the photo is taken out of context or that it actually comes from an old news story on a totally different topic. You can also check sites like Snopes, which debunks or verifies stories and memes, or a political fact-checking website, like the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact, which can tell you if a post or story is likely false.

If you want to dig deeper, you can call the reference desk at your local library.

How could electoral misinformation get worse?

Yes, it was already wrong. According to academic researchers and US intelligence agencies, both state-sponsored actors and shady website owners looking for clicks have created and disseminated misleading or completely false information for years. These intentional efforts are called disinformation.

But it has been getting worse. “The easiest prediction I can make for you is that we will see a lot more misinformation,” Dan Wallach, a professor of computer science at Rice University, said of the 2020 election. And this time, it won’t just be sponsored troll farms. by the Russian government, he added. “I see that many countries decide that it is worth manipulating us.”

Waiting for the results of this election will put many of us in a state of great anticipation. Between the coronavirus pandemic and our extremely polarized politics, we are desperate for answers. Just as research shows that emotional arousal makes younger and older people more prone to financial fraud, this mindset could make it worse for us to distinguish between fact and fiction. And it could lead to someone inadvertently passing on the bad information, adding to the massive amount of misinformation that already exists on the Internet.

People who create made-up news reports, deceptive memes, and conspiracy theories know that we are all susceptible. Getting us to share your posts could be even easier as voters scream (in their hearts at least) for the election results.

What’s in it for people who initiate misinformation after the election?

If the votes are already cast, you may be wondering if it is important for your Uncle Mike to post a false report of voter fraud on Facebook. Here’s the catch: Misinformation can still cause harm after the polls close. Most importantly, electoral security experts say, it could cause people to lose faith in the election results.

In the case of the 2020 US presidential elections, the adoption of the absentee vote has already led to false reports of widespread voter fraudas well as heightened concerns about limited access to the polls and polling places. A rising tide of misinformation aims to delegitimize the voting process in general, according to a July research by scholars with the Electoral Integrity Project. As a result, the public is prepared to receive reports of voting irregularities.

The problem will be determining which reports are true and which are false.