While social media platforms took steps to limit disinformation related to the 2020 US election, their efforts were not fully effective. Facebook labeled some of Trump's posts spreading doubts about mail-in voting, but a late November speech where he discussed electoral fraud was still viewed millions of times on Facebook and YouTube. Domestic groups spreading disinformation about election fraud on social media may have had a larger influence than foreign interference, and led to the January 6th attack on the US Capitol. The platforms' labeling of disputed claims did little to curb the spread of rumors and disinformation.

1. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Did Russia interfere
with the 2020
presidential election
as much as they did or
tried to do in 2016?

2. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• No.
• And Yes.
• It depends on the
timing.

3. Disinformation - 2020 Election
• Here’s what Facebook did to stop disinformation flows, based on lessons
it learned from 2016.
• The company placed an outright ban on content that seeks to intimidate voters or
interfere with voting, after Trump encouraged his supporters to “watch” people at
the polls in a manner some said was threatening.
• In September, Facebook for the first time added a label underneath a post from
Trump casting doubt on mail-in voting and encouraging supporters to vote twice,
saying that mail-in voting has been historically trustworthy.
• On October 10, it began featuring information panels and videos at the top of its
news feed regarding voting, offering state-specific tips on how to vote by mail in
both English and in Spanish.

4. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Twitter labeled content to
direct users to information
from neutral news
organizations such as
Reuters and the Associated
Press during the campaign.

5. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• YouTube likewise sought to
limit electoral
disinformation, but it did
so through enforcement of
existing terms and
conditions.
• As a result, it “got played”
by disinformation.

6. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Facebook became more
aggressive as the election
approached in applying
labels to campaign
assertions and vowed to
label posts from
candidates who
prematurely declared
victory.

7. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• "Ahead of this election we
developed informational
labels, which we applied
to candidate posts with a
goal of connecting people
with reliable sources about
the election," Facebook
spokesperson Liz
Bourgeois.

8. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Labels didn’t work,
according to data.
• Why?
• The platforms didn’t
disable engagement
mechanisms.
.

9. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• A Trump speech in late
November about electoral
fraud was viewed 14
million times on Facebook
and 5.5 million times on
YouTube.
• A Twitter version was
viewed 3.5 million times.
.

10. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Claims labeled “disputed”
did nothing to discredit
rumors, said Alex Howard,
a democratic governance
advocate and director of
the Digital Democracy
Project at the Demand
Progress Educational Fund.

11. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Russian operatives simply
amplified the posts by
sharing them, and that
showed its disinformation
efforts in the U.S. focused
on electoral fraud claims
and not much else.

12. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Facebook acknowledged
that its labels reduced
electoral fraud or pre-
mature election victory
posts by only about 8
percent.

13. Disinformation - 2020 Election
• Federal and state cybersecurity officials focused their efforts on
identifying disinformation from Russia, China and Iran.
• They did not, however, check the posts from domestic groups such
as adherents to domestic alt-right groups and Qanon, which
believed that Trump was trying to save the world from a satanic
cult.
• But the domestic groups had learned from Russia’s 2016
operations. They flooded social media with fraud claims.

14. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• The Jan. 6, 2021,
domestic terrorist attack
on the U.S. Capitol forced
Facebook to suspend
Trump’s account.
• It was too late. Domestic
not Russian disinformation
led to the crisis.

15. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Twitter permanently
banned Trump from its
platform, as did Snapchat.
• Facebook has sent its
decision to ban Trump to
an oversight board for
final decision.

16. Disinformation - 2020 Election
• Whether Facebook issues a permanent ban is open to question,
but it shows the importance of social media as part of the political
and ideological battlespace where disinformation can be found.
• Think of campaigns as the battlespace as noted in the introductory
lecture, with information serving as the enveloping force.
• The metaphor may not be as far-fetched as it seems.

17. Disinformation – 2020 Election

18. JRN 450 – Disinformation
2020 Election
• Former military and
intelligence community
members belong to the
Proud Boys, Oath Keepers
and Three Percenters –
three militia groups – that
helped to organize the
attack, as disinformation
research Dave Troy found.

19. Disinformation - 2020 Election
• “Please note: these people are not the norm, and career Mil/IC/Gov
professionals are, overwhelmingly, patriots who abhor this activity.
The defection of these people to dark causes is, in fact, evidence of
their alienation from the mainstream of their profession,” tweeted
Troy.
• And the alienated are the targets of alt-right and Qanon adherents
who spread disinformation and recruit the useful idiots required for
disinformation to evolve into the state of “altered consciousness”
discussed earlier.