Thread by @LeaKissner

Kicking off the last session of #enigma2021, @katestarbird is speaking about an extremely pressing topic: "ONLINE RUMORS, MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION: THE PERFECT STORM OF COVID-19 AND ELECTION2020"

usenix.org/conference/eni…

So much mis/dis-information in the last few months about covid: rumours about lockdowns, home remedies... and then conspiracy theories

This ... thing was taken viral by media and social media and spread so much mis/dis-information.

Mis/disinformation didn't start with the internet
* we've always been vulnerable to spreading rumours
* especially in times of crisis and anxiety

We engage in "collective sense-making" to try to soothe our anxiety in a crisis.

But this can go awry by making false rumours run wild and turn into misinformation.

Can also be exploited -- manipulators use crises as opportunities

COVID-19 is a perfect storm of uncertainty, lack of trust,

Election 2020 was a perfect storm as well: uncertainty and delay and lack of trust

Misinformation: false but not necessarily on purpose

Disinformation: is false, on purpose, and for a particular goal (e.g. financial or political). Generally a campaign, not just single pieces of content.

Pervasive disinformation erodes the foundations of democratic societies.

in 2016: foreign, inauthentic, coordinated
2020: domestic, authentic, organic/cultivated

Election integrity project performed rapid analysis of threats

started long before election: trump tweets, people make "evidence"

said "big if true" -- spoiler: not true

This is how this spread [diagram]

There was some disinformation on the left (mostly about removal of mailboxes) but *dwarfed* by the right

A week before the election put out a report on what to expect in the election and beyond [slide with lists of expected {mis/dis}information narratives]

We saw many of these types of narratives after the election. [breakdown of disinformation post-election]

[hash]sharpiegate [I am not summoning the hordes!]

Started with accusations then moved to disinformation

This is the spread starting ~2am on Nov 4th

Shift to AZ starts very closely when Fox calls AZ for Biden

Disinformation is participatory: Trump&co didn't just prime people to believe the disinformation, but to produce it

Elites set the agenda, audience made the evidence, elites echoed it back

The networks [mutually following accounts] are "wired" for disinformation

Saw on Jan 6th a physical, violent manifestation of this participatory disinformation

Twitter suspended a lot of accounts, but too late

Note: we pick on Twitter a lot, but that's only because they're open and let us research. The other platforms have these problems but we can't see as well

A lot of responsibility in the hands of these platforms, maybe too much

Can't fix it with a new feature or a few bans. Need to work together across industry, academic, civil society.

Need to rebuild trust to rebuild society.

[end of talk]