Digital Smarts - Facebook Failing When It Comes to Misinformation in Georgia Runoff Elections
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If you want to discuss with your kids how misinformation is creeping into our lives, you might want to use the upcoming Georgia runoff elections as a case study of how things are getting out of hand on social media. The full force of 2020’s most effective fake news tactics is hitting the state: fears of widespread voter fraud, allegations of violence, and claims about candidates’ socialism. But despite its much-touted efforts to add warning or fact-checking labels to election disinformation, Facebook is failing to do exactly that on more than half of the questionable posts related to the Georgia races, according to a new analysis by Avaaz, a nonprofit that tracks online disinformation. The group found that Facebook failed to add fact-checking labels to at least 60% of a cross-section of Georgia-related election misinformation that reached thousands of voters. An analysis of more than 200 posts promoting a dozen false claims about the Georgia elections in both English and Spanish showed how the posts followed a now well-worn playbook of amplifying disinformation that has proven effective in recent months. This includes falsehoods about widespread voter fraud, fake rumors about acts of violence targeting African-American voters, and allegations that Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock had “celebrated” Cuban leader Fidel Castro.