Democratic voters are being targeted with disinformation via text message and email

Daily Kos Staff

Saturday October 31, 2020 · 8:00 AM PDT

2020/10/31 · 08:00

This photo illustration taken on March 22, 2018 shows apps for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social networks on a smartphone in New Delhi. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo credit should read CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images) — Hoaxes everywhere, all the time.

The Washington Post has a report on ballooning disinformation campaigns popping up in text messages and via email, complete with examples of the most egregious. It does not, however, point out that all of their examples of disinformation—which "targeted battleground states"—seem to have been targeting Democrats. From conservative Terry Schilling's "Biden is going to give elementary schoolers sex change operations" to conservative Jacob Wohl's big-boy crime to messages about allegedly moved poll locations, the texts and emails continue a distinctly Republican pattern of lying to voters in an attempt to sabotage their votes and/or threatening them with fake legal repercussions for casting their ballots.

Even the Iranian fake-Proud-Boys threats, which also target Democrats with threatening messages if they vote against Trump, fit the pattern, though 1.) the true intent is unclear and 2.) given that it's the Trump administration announcing the scheme, and the Trump team has lied about everything, at every opportunity, we don't yet know what parts of those claims are true and what parts were invented by the hyperpartisan Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe out of twine and old string cheese wrappers.

What the Post does identify, though, is a pattern of saboteurs shifting their campaigns off social media and into darker, harder-to-manage corners.

That could be a sign that social media giants like Facebook and Twitter are maaaybe indeed making things more difficult for dispensers of bulk election disinformation (at least, the truly criminal versions). On the other hand, it might instead be a sign that disinformation is going to keep growing in every venue, forever and ever, because there's simply not much risk in being an online criminal.

Unless you're just astonishingly dumb about it, a la Wohl.

In the past few years, telephone landlines have become overwhelmed with scammers; you may be among those lucky Americans whose answering machines are far more filled with predatory and criminal hoaxes than they are Actual People You Know. Email is similarly a cesspool of fraud and half-organized crime. Social media is ... social media. And it seems that text messages will be the next fertile field for fraudsters looking to defraud people one-on-one.

What I'm saying here is that this is why we can't have nice things. I'm not sure there's any deeper message than that, other than for the love of God do not believe anything anybody sends you unless you know them, and/or are related to them, and/or have administered specific tests to determine that they have not been replaced with a robot, an Uber lobbyist, or a stock-picking algorithm that has donned human skin. Just ... don't.

Do your part to fight election disinformation. Sign up with the Biden-Harris campaign to make phone calls to swing state voters from the comfort of your own home, no matter where you live. All you need is a personal computer, a quiet place in your home where you can make phone calls, and a desire to kick Donald Trump out of office.

Democratic voters are being targeted with disinformation via text message and email

Comments are closed on this story.