Voters in the US who take to Twitter, TikTok, Facebook or other platforms to learn about Tuesday’s key US midterm elections are likely to encounter rumours, rumors and misinformation.
There is also a lot of useful information on social media, including authoritative results from election officials, the latest news about candidates and races, and perspectives from voters who cast ballots.
Here are some tips for navigating social media on Election Day — and in the days or weeks to come.
PAGE WILL HAPPEN. IT DOESN’T MEAN THERE ARE FRAUDS
Elections are run by people and mistakes are inevitable. However, stripped of context, stories of irregularities at polling stations and electoral offices can be used as evidence of widespread fraud.
And with so much happening on Election Day, election workers, local officials and even the media may have little time to push such claims before they go viral.
In Georgia in 2020, a water leak at a site where ballots were being counted was used to explain a far-fetched tale of vote rigging. In Arizona, the choice of pens given to voters filling out ballots led to similarly absurd claims.
Neither incident affected results, yet both continue to appear in fraudulent posts as evidence of fraud.
“The Internet allows people to create their own evidence from scratch, and then spread it to millions of others,” said John Jackson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. “That doesn’t mean their evidence means anything, but it does mean we all have to be better at evaluating what they say.”
KNOW YOUR HOT POINTS
Misinformation thrives when people seek information to explain something they don’t understand. This creates a huge opportunity for those seeking to confuse or deceive voters.
The complicated rules and checks and balances that govern American elections vary from state to state. They can confuse someone who is not familiar with election procedures, and this confusion has allowed disinformation to flourish.
Many of the fraudulent claims that circulated before the election focused on issues of voting mechanics: voter registration, mail-in ballots, and vote counting. Many election officials have tried to educate the public in recent months with social media posts, articles and ads about the system many people take for granted.
“Whenever people don’t understand something, there’s a vacuum that needs to be filled,” said AJ Nash, vice president of intelligence at ZeroFox, a cybersecurity firm that has tracked election disinformation this year. “The question is: What ends up filling that vacuum?”
CHECK YOUR SOURCES
If you’re looking for election results, go to local and state election websites and trusted local and national news outlets.
If you see someone posting about problems at a polling place, for example, check the social media feed or the website of the local elections office.
Avoid getting all your election-related information from social media. Rules for content moderation vary widely from platform to platform, and enforcement can be spotty. Even the owners of the platforms themselves are not immune from the spread of misinformation, as the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, has done.
According to Bhaskar Chakravorti, who studies technological change and society and is dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, a well-rounded media diet loaded with authoritative and reliable sources can help people not fall behind or spread misinformation.
“Do you consult original sources, or just get your news from social media?” said Chakravorty. “If you only use sources from social media, you will be more vulnerable to misinformation.”
BE CAREFUL OF YOUR EMOTIONS
The most viral hoaxes often rely on tricks to get a person to believe something that isn’t true.
Emotionally charged language is one of the most effective: Be suspicious of any claim that seems designed to provoke a strong emotional response such as fear or anger. These strong feelings can cause a person to repost a false claim before they have a chance to think it through.
Think twice about any claim that does not provide its sources or makes biased claims. Be equally suspicious of exaggerated claims, misleading comparisons, and claims that single out groups of people by race or background.
If something seems too good – or too terrible – to be true, check it out. Someone might be trying to trick you, said Rebecca Rayburn-Reeves, a senior behavioral researcher at Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight, which develops ways to make people more resilient to misinformation.
“It’s about using your critical thinking,” Rayburn-Reeves said. “Be open-minded, but also skeptical. I say: Be a skeptic dear.”
BE PATIENT! IT TAKES TIME FOR RESULTS TO COUNT
The US has a long history of elections that took days, weeks or even months to resolve. Recent increases in the use of mail-in ballots have only increased the certainty that some races will not be decided on Tuesday night.
Election officials in several states have already announced that they expect some results to take longer. In key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, election officials can’t begin counting mail-in ballots until Election Day, guaranteeing delays.
Still, the idea that voting delays equal fraud continues to reverberate online and will likely continue to spread long after Election Day thanks to candidates and politicians who have amplified the claim, according to Larry Norden, senior director of elections and program government in Brennan. New York University Law Center.
“It leaves room for doubt and people will take advantage of that,” Norden told the AP. “It is part of a deliberate attempt to undermine confidence in the election.”
___
Follow AP’s misinformation coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation. Follow AP for complete coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.
