Hey, Team Beto, Rachel here! Over the past few years, you’ve probably heard a lot about misinformation, and I’m guessing it’s mainly been around Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections seeding and spreading false narratives across social media platforms. But this week, we saw on a few different levels that the threat of misinformation is alive and well during the 2020 race - and it’s stemming not just from right-wing bots on Twitter and Facebook, but also from the person holding the highest office in the country: President Trump.
In today’s issue of Writing No One Off we’re digging into two misinformation campaigns waged this week - one of which was directly targeted at Beto for America - and we’ll provide an inside look into how to spot misinformation and what to do about it.
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Roadrunner
Beto started off this week making an unscheduled stop in Odessa and Midland, where he met with victims and family members of those impacted by the mass shooting last Saturday. During his visit, he reiterated the urgency with which we need to confront the gun violence epidemic in this country and get assault weapons off our streets.
His bold, direct confrontation of the gun violence crisis in America and his support for a mandatory assault weapon buyback program continues to catch on with members of the media and influencers across the country. Check out New York Times columnist Charles Blow’s piece this week “Stop lying about gun control” where he applauded Beto’s direct, honest and ambitious approach to gun violence, and called him his hero of the week on Twitter:
Beto is also the only candidate - yes, the only candidate - to come out in support for the March for our Lives’ Peace Plan to end gun violence, which also includes a mandatory buyback provision.
Agree with Beto that gun violence in America is f*ucked up? Buy a t-shirt supporting Moms Demand Action and March For Our Lives.
After visiting Midland and Odessa, Beto traveled to New York City, where he participated in the CNN Climate Forum. Beto has called climate change one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime, and was the first candidate in this race to release a comprehensive plan to confront climate change. During the forum, Beto not only called for a cap and trade approach to address climate change, but also spoke to the impact climate change is having on migration. And he was the only candidate who called on the Trump administration to waive visa requirements for those fleeing the devastation of Hurricane Dorian and seeking reunification with their families as a result of the storm.
Following the climate forum, Beto took the Bolt Bus to Boston (my hometown!), where he held a town hall at Tufts University (Go Jumbos!) then met with students at a packed event in Roxbury.
From Boston, Beto heads to New Hampshire, where he’ll speak at the New Hampshire Democratic Party Convention and will hold town halls at the University of New Hampshire and Keene State.
More on Beto will be in the coming weeks 👀
September 6: Keene, NH: Keene State town hall with Beto. RSVP here.
September 7: Manchester, NH: Beto to participate in the New Hampshire Democratic Party Convention. RSVP here
September 7: Durham, NH: Beto to hold town hall at the University of New Hampshire. RSVP here.
September 21: Des Moines, IA: Join Team Beto at the Polk County Steak Fry. RSVP here.
🧐Looking to take action with the campaign? You can find an event near you on our map 🗺. And be sure to check the map frequently, as new events are added daily!
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Favorite Things
🚨Amy’s out on the trail! 🚨
This week, Amy O’Rourke took her first solo trip of the campaign! She’s been traveling across New Hampshire meeting with gun violence prevention advocates, small business owners, college students and members of the community to hear directly from them about the issues they care about and discuss Beto’s vision for the future of this country. And yesterday, she went door-knocking with Naomi Andrews, candidate for New Hampshire’s 9th State House district.
Check out @BetoforNH on Twitter where you can follow along with Amy during her travels this week, and make sure to follow her on Instagram at @amysorourke to keep up with her on the trail throughout the fall.
Rise Above
As I mentioned earlier, misinformation campaigns are very-much present already in the 2020 campaign. But this week, it hit home for Beto for America.
First, BFA was at the center of a misinformation campaign related to the Midland-Odessa shooting. In the hours following the tragedy, we were informed that a false claim on Twitter connecting the Odessa shooter to the Beto campaign was gaining traction across social media - and the claim was being fueled and amplified by right-wing bot networks. In short order the false tweet and Facebook post gained tens of thousands of shares and retweets, and had quickly become a top search query on Google related to Beto. While we were able to act quickly to tamp down the false information, the original post potentially reached hundreds of thousands of users.
Second, this country’s very own president sought to drive his very own misinformation campaign around the path of Hurricane Dorian this week. While it should be no surprise to anyone that Donald Trump is willing to promote false information (he’s made over 12,000 false or misleading claims since assuming office in January 2017), he took it to another level when he falsely tweeted that Alabama was likely to be hit harder than expected by Hurricane Dorian. Even though the National Weather Service quickly refuted his claim, over the past 36 hours Trump has doubled down on his incorrect assertion, displaying a doctored map in the Oval Office of the hurricane’s path and bringing his own administration in to back his erroneous claim.
This is just another example of Trump and his administration’s willingness to amplify false and misleading information to drive a more favorable narrative for themselves. What’s even more alarming is that a member of Trump’s own reelection campaign amplified the dangerous, misleading information about the Odessa attack - and has since refused to either acknowledge the fallacy of the claim or help stop the spread of this false narrative. So this week, we wanted to let you know how we’ve been working to stop the spread of false information and how you can spot bots that may be amplifying fake claims across your own networks.
I sat down with our digital director, Rob Flaherty, to ask him more about the misinformation attack this week and what to do to identify fake accounts:
Q: How did BFA spot the disinformation?
Honestly it started showing up in our mentions on a few accounts on Twitter. We then got a notification from the DNC's misinformation team about the origins of the rumor. We started poking around on Facebook and found that there had been an aggressive spread there as well.
Q: How quickly did we see it spread?
We picked up on it within three or four hours of the original post - fast but not fast enough.
Q: What should individuals look out for on social media? Is there any way to spot misinformation from an individual account?
It’s actually pretty hard to tell. This case was interesting - the Sue Moore account that was the origin of the rumor appeared to us to be fake - mostly links from Facebook with occasional posts in bursts. Twitter now claims its a real person. There are obvious tell-tales that an account is fake: long strings of numbers on the ends of account names being one of them. But identifying misinformation often takes a little bit of media literacy and a healthy skepticism of unsourced claims.
Q: Should you take different approaches on Facebook vs. Twitter?
Yes and no. The general principle of not believing what you see without a trustworthy source confirming is holds: if you see a link to, say, the Washington Post, that's more trustworthy than a single Facebook post from your aunt. On Twitter, this stuff spreads fast - and generally publicly. We have pretty good tools to track it and flag it. Facebook is a big black hole, so we can't tell how far the stuff goes or who is sharing it or even if it's being shared. Basically: if you're trying to sort what’s real and fake, approach everything with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially for stuff that appears in shareable graphics or from sketchy-seeming accounts.
Q: Has this happened often with the campaign? Or is this the first time we've seen misinformation spreading about Beto?
It's not the first time we've seen it, but it's certainly the largest misinformation attack in its speed and scale. We're always monitoring, and if you're on these platforms, you should feel free to flag anything suspicious that you see!
Thanks, Rob!
All in all, the events of this week have further reinforced that misinformation is a real and serious threat to our democracy - not just on Election Day but every day leading up to it. And it’s up to us to not only actively work to stop the spread of misinformation but elect a leader in the White House who will recognize what’s at stake and confront this threat head on.
C’mon Everybody
In our poll, we want to know what you’re most excited about this week:
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See you soon!
Rachel
@rachel_r_thomas