- Moderator
- #1
How much of these protests and reactions is being driven by disinformation designed to foment violence and unrest?
A fake story began circulating Sunday evening into Monday morning, which was then disputed by real journalists as well as a number of bots. Experts say the campaign may have been meant to make people question whether anything they see online is true.
The image would shock just about anyone: a fire so large that it seems to stretch halfway up the 550-foot-tall Washington Monument, and burning so bright that it dramatically illuminated the landmark.
Shocking, but fake.
The image was a screenshot from the fictional ABC show "Designated Survivor." But coming on the third day of raucous protests around the White House against police violence — which did include some fires that were intentionally set — it could have seemed like it was real.
The image quickly went viral on Twitter, not unlike a number of other rumors that spread during moments of uncertainty and chaos over the weekend, and which showed how the intense polarization of the current moment is fertile ground for online disinformation campaigns.
And there were claims spread under the #dcblackout hashtag that cell phones and other communication devices were blocked as part of a strategy to allow violent police reprisals to go unreported. That, too, was not true.
"Some of my videos and pics being posted by accounts saying they were last before a "#dcblackout" where streams and cells shut down. I didn't experience anything like that and — though I didn't try streaming — had no issue with phone as I tweeted and worked until 2:30 am at least," tweeted Yahoo! reporter Hunter Walker on Monday morning.
"Stop retweeting #dcblackout," added CBS reporter Christina Ruffini. "None of this is true. Eventually, even TV crews need to sleep, but ours and many others were out late into the night. Their phones worked. Live signal was strong. Many of these tweets are the same wording. Don't fall for whatever is happening here."
Experts say the #dcblackout hashtag seemed to be the work of a"well-funded" and organized internet campaign, and a successful one at that.
Many of the accounts promoting the #dcblackout claims had few followers themselves, indicating that they could have been created specifically for the purpose of spreading disinformation, said Alex Engler, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has followed the use of social media and technology to spread propaganda.
"A lot of these accounts are pretty suspicious, especially the ones disseminating them at night. But there are very real people now promoting this. By 9 a.m. the fact that the origin of the story seems to be manufactured would already be obscured to you," he says.
"Even if a huge percentage of those real people are using that hashtag to say, 'hey, this isn't real' — it doesn't matter," Linvill said. Even if only 20% of people posting about it believe it, "20% of a million is still 200,000 people."
'None Of This Is True': Protests Become Fertile Ground for Online Disinformation
A well-funded and elaborate social media disinformation campaign played out online Sunday night, experts say, showing how polarization creates situations where lies go viral.
www.npr.org
A fake story began circulating Sunday evening into Monday morning, which was then disputed by real journalists as well as a number of bots. Experts say the campaign may have been meant to make people question whether anything they see online is true.
The image would shock just about anyone: a fire so large that it seems to stretch halfway up the 550-foot-tall Washington Monument, and burning so bright that it dramatically illuminated the landmark.
Shocking, but fake.
The image was a screenshot from the fictional ABC show "Designated Survivor." But coming on the third day of raucous protests around the White House against police violence — which did include some fires that were intentionally set — it could have seemed like it was real.
The image quickly went viral on Twitter, not unlike a number of other rumors that spread during moments of uncertainty and chaos over the weekend, and which showed how the intense polarization of the current moment is fertile ground for online disinformation campaigns.
And there were claims spread under the #dcblackout hashtag that cell phones and other communication devices were blocked as part of a strategy to allow violent police reprisals to go unreported. That, too, was not true.
"Some of my videos and pics being posted by accounts saying they were last before a "#dcblackout" where streams and cells shut down. I didn't experience anything like that and — though I didn't try streaming — had no issue with phone as I tweeted and worked until 2:30 am at least," tweeted Yahoo! reporter Hunter Walker on Monday morning.
"Stop retweeting #dcblackout," added CBS reporter Christina Ruffini. "None of this is true. Eventually, even TV crews need to sleep, but ours and many others were out late into the night. Their phones worked. Live signal was strong. Many of these tweets are the same wording. Don't fall for whatever is happening here."
Experts say the #dcblackout hashtag seemed to be the work of a"well-funded" and organized internet campaign, and a successful one at that.
Many of the accounts promoting the #dcblackout claims had few followers themselves, indicating that they could have been created specifically for the purpose of spreading disinformation, said Alex Engler, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has followed the use of social media and technology to spread propaganda.
"A lot of these accounts are pretty suspicious, especially the ones disseminating them at night. But there are very real people now promoting this. By 9 a.m. the fact that the origin of the story seems to be manufactured would already be obscured to you," he says.
"Even if a huge percentage of those real people are using that hashtag to say, 'hey, this isn't real' — it doesn't matter," Linvill said. Even if only 20% of people posting about it believe it, "20% of a million is still 200,000 people."