Thread by @marcowenjones

🧵 1/ This is what 286,000 tweets, retweets and replies calling Joe Biden a 'pedophile' look like. This is just the past 8 months too.

2/ The claim, which dates back to at least 2020, and which was previously debunked, is not going away. This graph shows that there are thousands of tweets per month about Biden being a pedo. At least once a month, one of these goes viral, getting thousands of RTs

3/ Below shows a recent viral tweet from @DineshDSouza - with an unverified screenshot from Ashley Biden's diary where she claims she was molested by her dad. Ashley Biden's diary was reportedly stolen & sold to Project Veritas, a far right group that creates deceptive content

4/ to discredit progressive groups. SNOPES noted that the White house, FBI or DOJ have not confirmed authenticity of the diary - even though it is thought to be (this does not mean the contents being shared are authentic - to say nothing of the chain of custody of an item stolen

5/ and sold to an organisation who have made a name for deceptively smearing liberal groups). Anyway, past attempts smear Biden as a pedophile, along with this diary which will be the 'smoking gun' for Biden's opponents, suggests this is going to get much worse

6) as the election approaches. An analysis of the Twitter bios of those tweeting that Biden is a pedo reveal the most common descriptor is MAGA, followed by 'love', 'conservative' and 'Trump'. It's no surprise then to see that this is a highly partisan rumour

7) It's also useful to see it in the context of long-running attempts to manipulate or decontextualise media in order to portray Biden as a pedophile - something that speaks to the QAnon doctrine - where most establishment democrats are viewed as 'pedophiles'

8/8) While it's no secret that American political discourse has become increasingly preposterous, I can't help but feel the next election is going to plunge to new depths of nihilistic absurdity, where facts, lies and info ops coalesce to erode what's left of our shared reality

9* It's worth noting that the account creation data highlights a huge influx of right wing, conservative accounts that joined during April and October - the months Musk announced and bought Twitter. I've seen this signature on other hashtags - mostly about conspiracies. It

10) either suggests Musks announcements resulted in a huge influx of right-wing accounts to Twitter (just as we saw a liberal exodus to Mastodon) - or something else strange is going on.