The reality is that it always takes time for some states to count all the votes; when these rumors started ramping up, there were over ten million uncounted ballots in California alone. But, many people don’t know that this is how things always work. So, with emotions high in the aftermath of the election, disinformation purveyors are taking advantage of the opportunity to get well-intentioned people to help amplify conspiracy theories.
If you see allegations of “millions of missing votes” or voting machine fraud, please don’t amplify them! Instead:
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If it’s somebody you know, send them a private message letting them know that they’re unintentionally amplifying a false rumor.
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If it’s not somebody you know, report it to the moderators as disinformation.
“check to see if the information is accurate” is better advice.
All the way back to bush, conservatives were ramping up removing voting machines from minority and blue districts, purging voter registrations, challenging cosmetic scuffs on ballots, and they did the same thing this election.
votes being attacked and blocked definitely happened, and thousands of votes were blocked in most states that were perfectly legal, but it doesn’t stop conservatives from challenging their validity.
it doesn’t have to be labeled a “conspiracy” if it is a fact.
conservatives can’t win purely on numbers anymore, so they focus on dividing and disqualifying democratic voters.
blocked legal ballots:
https://www.turnto23.com/politics/america-votes/pennsylvania-election-officials-tackling-challenges-to-mail-ballots
purged voter rolls:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-virginia-purge-noncitizens-voter-rolls-ahead-elec-rcna177673
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/politics/attempts-to-purge-voter-rolls-increase-as-election-nears/index.html
This is just great general advice for anything you read or post online. A misinformation tweet on Monday, spreads like wildfire on Tuesday, is looked at by professionals on Wednesday, a reasonable take or correction appears Thursday, and by Friday the only thing anyone remembers is the lie.
I’m reminded of “This Video Will Make You Angry” by CGP Grey, https://youtu.be/rE3j_RHkqJc
But you don’t get likes or whatever by taking time to write out a well thought out opinion.
I talked about that in the article:
And I also discussed it in terms of the goals of people pushing these conspiracy theories:
you also mention that we don’t know the extent of the voter fraud that occurred, that there certainly was voter fraud, that exaggerated claims of voter fraud are not widespread.
and then the conclusion is to be careful of “conspiracies”.
that doesn’t track.
we’re not sure how much of the rainforest corporations have destroyed.
We know that corporations have certainly destroyed large parts of the rainforest.
therefore, if you hear people talking about corporations destroying too much rainforest, it might develop into a dangerous conspiracy, so report it for disinformation?
no.
voter suppression is and has been a real and significant problem, people should be aware of it. reporting hyperbolic disinformation should be a supportive paragraph to this point, not the conclusion or title, especially when violent calls to action are not a problem on the democratic side…
as you say, hyperbolic claims only manifest sporadically on a couple message boards.
that is not the same as an entire political party simultaneously claiming that their election was stolen and then violently attacking the capitol and the two should not be correlated.