Americans Were Primed To Believe The Current Onslaught Of Disinformation

[Newest Reality]

It started with a drizzle but quickly turned into a downpour: Disinformation about the election, and in particular unfounded claims of election fraud, has flooded the internet over the past week. And Americans were primed to believe it.

Dozens of false claims shared on social media have kept fact-checkers busy and partisans energized. Pro-Trump Facebook groups that dispute the election results have attracted tens of thousands of users and become a lively marketplace for exchanging disinformation (until the social media network shuts them down). And President Trump’s supporters have shown up in person as well to rail against what they perceive to be election fraud.

Meanwhile, polls show a substantial percentage of the population, particularly Republicans, believe (without evidence) that voter fraud has occurred. According to a poll from YouGov and The Economist conducted Nov. 8-10 among registered voters, 82 percent of Republicans said they did not believe that Joe Biden had legitimately won the presidential election, even though he has. This followed a Nov. 7 YouGov poll among registered voters that found 79 percent of Republicans believed voter fraud had occurred and affected the outcome of the election. Similarly, in a Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted Nov. 6-9 among registered voters, 70 percent of Republicans said they didn’t believe the 2020 election was free and fair — double the 35 percent of Republicans who answered that way in a poll conducted before the election.

To a certain extent, disinformation about the results of the election was expected. Experts have been warning about it for weeks. “But I do think the volume of the garbage and the inability of social media platforms to have effective means to stop the undermining of results of the election is really concerning,” said Craig Silverman, a journalist at BuzzFeed News who has been tracking disinformation throughout the election. “When it became very clear that Trump wasn’t going to concede, the machinery of justifying that decision has really kicked into high gear. I feel like today it was as bad as it was leading up to Election Day.”

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-were-primed-to-believe-the-current-onslaught-of-disinformation/

[Skittles]

1. if you're stupid enough to vote for Trump

you are dumb enough to believe anything

[triron]

2. So it seems.

[bronxiteforever]

6. +1 That about says it all.

[triron]

3. Plus intense disinformation from Barr and the rest of Trump's cabinet and many Puke congress

critters. Lies work with most Republican voters.

[greenjar_01]

4. Black box voting conspiracies and similar nonsense from the left also helped

The endless drumbeat that if you lose an election it was "fixed" plays a large part. Sometimes, you just lose.

For the last twenty years both left and right have worked mightily to undermine public confidence in election results. Sorry, I know this will be criticized as both siderism, but it's true. Kerry lost Ohio. Sure, there was the usual suppression, but voting machines don't switch votes. The more we said they did, the more we worked to create the cynicisms that Trump is now playing on.

[barbtries]

5. it's propaganda.

i don't quite get why the word is shied away from.

[Newest Reality]

8. Yup!

[gulliver]

7. There's no solid taboo against believing what you want to believe without evidence.

But there are solid taboos against not believing what your tribe believes even if you have evidence.