CIP in the News: November 2024

Nov 30, 2024

Looking toward Mount Rainier from Mary Gates Hall with blue skies.

News coverage from November 2024 about the Center for an Informed Public and CIP-affiliated research and researchers.

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  • The New York Times (November 1, 2024) “Disinformation watchdogs are under pressure. This group refuses to stop.”
    A feature in The New York Times spotlights the work of the CIP’s election rumor research team and quotes CIP co-founder Kate Starbird and research manager Danielle Lee Tomson. As The Times wrote: “Inside two small, windowless conference rooms on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, a group of students and researchers is prowling the internet to track the rumors and conspiracy theories eroding faith in this year’s presidential election.”

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  • The New York Times (November 1, 2024) “How election deniers sank a security conference in Georgia”
    The New York Times CIP election rumor research in a story about conspiracy theories surrounding a cybersecurity association’s conference in Atlanta that ended up being canceled due to false claims shared online. The Times also recreated a CIP infographic showing the spread of narratives about the Atlanta cybersecurity conference on X.

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  • The Washington Post (November 2, 2024) “How to read this chart newsletter”
    CIP graduate research assistant Stephen Prochaska and research manager Danielle Lee Tomson were interviewed about CIP data visualizations.

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  • GeekWire (November 2, 2024) “‘You can’t fact-check a feeling’: UW researcher on AI’s unexpected role in the 2024 campaign”
    “When AI is used in ways that are illegal, you can face consequences,” Danielle Lee Tomson, CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson said in a GeekWire podcast interview.  “But when AI is used to create an ambience online, you could say, ‘Oh yeah, Donald Trump is not a Steelers linebacker,’ but you feel something — and you can’t fact-check a feeling.”

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  • The New York Times (November 4, 2024) “On Telegram, a violent preview of what may unfold on Election Day and after”
    Telegram research insights from CIP graduate research assistant and UW Human Centered Design & Engineering doctoral candidate Zarine Kharazian was cited in the research methodology used by The New York Times to study election-related discussions on Telegram.

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  • Arizona Mirror (November 4, 2024): “Maricopa County is ground zero for election misinformation in 2024”
    In an interview with the Arizona Mirror, CIP graduate research assistant and UW Human Centered Design & Engineering doctoral candidate Zarine Kharazian said:  “Voters have been primed by the election fraud narrative. There’s a broader repertoire of rumors from which to choose.”

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  • MSNBC (November 4, 2024): “We research rumors. Here’s how the right’s election denial machine has evolved.”
    In a MSNBC contributed article, CIP researchers Danielle Lee Tomson, Stephen Prochaska, and Kate Starbird wrote: “As researchers of rumors and rumoring, we study how people make sense of what’s going on in highly uncertain scenarios like elections. In the coming days, we expect thousands of rumors to circulate on (and off) social media. Though some may be built around kernels of fact, misleading rumors distort the truth and context, obscure solutions, and fuel conspiracy theories of an intentional voter fraud scheme.”

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  • The New York Times (November 4, 2024): “5 reasons early voting is overwhelmed with falsehoods”
    In an interview with The New York Times, CIP co-founder Kate Starbird said: “The period of time to generate all of those Election Day rumors is stretched out across all of these early in-person voting periods.”

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  • Platformer (November 4, 2024) “X’s plan to interfere with the election”
    In an edition of his Platformer newsletter, Casey Newton cited CIP co-founder Kate Starbird‘s May 6, 2021 tweet thread on participatory disinformation that was reproduced in a CIP blog post.  

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  • Cyberscoop (November 4, 2024): “The post-election threats you need to prepare for, according to experts”
    Cyberscoop interviewed CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson about election rumoring dynamics studied by CIP researchers: “This year we’ve had an interesting dynamic at play … what appears to be a political strategy almost, of using that collective sense making process and fueling it with digital infrastructure, with tools and with rhetoric” to create a groundswell of public evidence to undermine voting results, Tomson told Cyberscoop.

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  • Raleigh News & Observer (November 5, 2024): “Under the Dome: How to spot election misinformation, and when to expect results”
    CIP election rumor research and observations that CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson made during a November 1 CIP research and media briefing were referenced in an Election Day politics column in The News & Observer and other McClatchy newspapers in North Carolina.

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  • NBC News (November 5, 2024): “Officials brace for a flood of disinformation and legal claims as Election Day finally arrives”
    NBC News reported on Election Day: “In Seattle, 25 researchers at the Center for an Informed Public will work in shifts to document rumors as they arise on Election Day and beyond. It is one of a few large-scale academic projects still studying election disinformation — several prominent others shuttered or were weakened in response to a conservative attack on such research. In published primers, the researchers have said to expect a steady stream of rumors throughout the day — potentially hundreds of videos, photos and statements purporting to capture suspected irregularities, conspiracy theories or concerns Trump and his allies may present as evidence of voter fraud.” NBC News also interviewed CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson, who said: “The problem is when political actors or influencers take one real problem and misleadingly exaggerate its impact or scope to indicate some larger coordinate fraud or mass conspiracy.”

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  • The Stranger (November 5, 20204): “Don’t be a sucker for election rumors”
    Comments CIP co-founder Kate Starbird made during November 1 CIP research and media briefing were cited in an article in The Stranger about different types of election rumors.

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  • NBC10 Philadelphia (November 5, 2024): “City commissioners deny Trump’s claim that Philly is cheating in the presidential election”
    Comments CIP co-founder Kate Starbird that were featured in a NBC News article were folded into a local NBC10 Philadelphia story. Starbird observed that Election Day rumors emerging from vote tabulator problems in Pennsylvania potentially echo those that spread during the 2022 election in Maricopa County, Arizona. Starbird added, “from early rumors of concern about the issues and the proposed remedies to later conspiracy theories about the issues being an intentional effort to disenfranchise election day voters.” 

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  • National Public Radio (November 5, 2024): “Be wary of what photos and videos are supposed to ‘prove’”
    CIP senior research scientist Rachel Moran-Prestridge told NPR: In this day and age, “The old adage … ‘seeing is believing’ just doesn’t really hold truth anymore.” When you come across a piece of media online, it’s worth asking: “Is what I’m hearing or seeing AI generated? Or could it be real and edited in a deceptive fashion?”

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  • National Public Radio (November 5, 2024) “Trump supporters are already crowdsourcing election fraud claims online”
    “There are lawyers at the ready to go take these rumors, misperceptions, misinterpretations, convert those into affidavits on Election Day or the days following, and try to use that either to contest whether certain votes are counted … or to use that to try to pressure election officials and others not to certify results,” CIP co-founder Kate Starbird said in a NPR interview.

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  • Kiowa County Press (November 5, 2024): “Politics: 2024Talks – November 5, 2024”
    Comments that CIP co-founder Kate Starbird made to The New York Times were highlighted in a Kiowa County Press Politics Talk show episode.

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  • Bloomberg Technology (November 5, 2024): “Parsing election Facts from fiction”
    CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson did a live television interview with Bloomberg Technology on Election Day, sharing insights from the CIP’s election rumor research team.

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  • The Conversation (November 5, 2024): “Elon Musk’s flood of US election tweets may look chaotic. My data reveals an alarming strategy”
    In a contributed article published in The Conversation, Queensland University of Technology associate professor Timothy Graham cites a June 2023 Social Media + Society article  co-authored by CIP co-founder Kate Starbird about participatory disinformation. Graham writes:  “This concept, developed by computer scientist Kate Starbird and colleagues, explains how both ordinary people as well as politicians and influential actors become active participants in spreading false narratives.”

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  • The New York Times (November 6, 2024) “After Trump took the lead, election deniers went suddenly silent”
    In an article looking at how voter fraud claims in Pennsylvania surged early on Election Day before mostly dying out, The New York Times cited CIP election rumor research analysis and recreated a CIP interactive data visualization online showing the spread of false claims around voter fraud.

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  • VentureBeat (November 6, 2024): “Introducing Narrative Command, the new business thesis that helps explain the 2024 election”
    In a conversation with angel investor Alex Roy, Venture Beat’s Carl Franzen cites a November 6 Bluesky post by CIP co-founder Kate Starbird, who wrote: “The Right built a powerful, partisan, & participatory media environment to support its messaging, which offers a compelling ‘deep story’ for its participants. The Left relied upon rigid, self-preserving institutional media and its ‘story’ is little more than a defense of imperfect institutions.”  

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  • The Washington Post (November 6, 2024): “Republican election denial claims take a hiatus with Trump’s victory”
    The Washington Post quoted comments made by CIP co-founder Kate Starbird about how election rumors from left-leaning figures online are not getting as much traction as similar narratives in 2020, in part because no major politicians or political candidates have shared them.  “It’s happening,” Starbird said. “It’s just happening at a really low level.”

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  • CBS News (November 8, 2024): “When Trump’s victory became clear, online claims of election fraud quieted”
    CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson spoke with CBS News about how election rumors around voting machines problems in Pennsylvania on Election Day were similar in nature to ones in Maricopa County, Arizona from 2022. “On Election Day, we can always expect there to be irregularities or glitches or problems at polling sites,” Tomson said. “The question is will those issues be contorted into a larger narrative that election fraud is happening.”

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  • National Public Radio (November 9, 2024): “2020’s debunked election fraud claims are coming back due to Trump’s 2024 victory”
    NPR cited CIP election rumor research that tracked the spread of claims online that the results of the 2024 U.S. elections somehow proves voter fraud from the 2020 elections. CIP co-founder Kate Starbird and research manager Danielle Lee Tomson were both interviewed. “There are folks that are making a living right now on talking about election fraud. 2024 isn’t going to give them much material for that, because it’s not going to advance their political goals,” Starbird said. “So they may be replaying 2020 and and trying to bring the events of Election Day 2024 and some of the outcomes into those conspiracy theories about 2020.”

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  • The Washington Post (November 9, 2024)  “AI didn’t sway the election, but it deepened the partisan divide”
    In an article about how artificial intelligence didn’t impact the 2024 U.S. elections in ways initially feared, The Washington Post quoted from remarks CIP co-founder Kate Starbrid made during a November 6 CIP election rumor research briefing: “For the most part, the rumors we see are usually based on misinterpretations of real evidence rather than fabricated evidence,” she said. “That held through on Election Day.”

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  • The Charlotte Observer (November X, 2024): “Trump won, but amateur election audits proliferate in NC — fueled by misinformation”
    Comments made by CIP graduate research assistant Stephen Prochaska during a November 1 CIP media briefing were cited in a McClatchy newspapers Reality Check article published in The Charlotte Observer and other newspapers in North Carolina. Prochaka, as the article notes, observed how in “the past few years, groups have mobilized to build infrastructure that gathers evidence of alleged election interference to prove their thesis.”

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  • National Public Radio (November 11, 2024): “Claims that millions of noncitizens would illegally vote evaporated after Trump’s win”
    CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson was interviewed for a NPR story about how pre-election claims that millions of non-citizens would vote in the 2024 U.S. election had mostly dried up online. “Simply put, it did not come up in a substantial or organized conversation on Election Day,” Tomson said. “I think the folks who drew attention to those kinds of narratives to begin with have other focuses now that Trump has won.”

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  • Agence France-Presse (November 12, 2024): “Election fraud claims go silent after Trump win”
    CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson discussed how although there has been some discussions in left-leaning online communities about possible voter fraud, those claims have been minimal. “No major candidate or political organizer has amplified it,” Tomson told AFP. “It is diffuse and significantly smaller because there is no leadership spreading it, whereas on the right that was the case in 2020 and 2022.” The article was republished in Barrons, Courthouse News, WFMZ-TV in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the Omak-Okanogan Chronicle in Washington state, Australia’s Daily Telegraph, and The Standard in Kenya.

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  • Tech Policy Press (November 13, 2024) “Tracking social media platforms’ fluctuating approaches to U.S. elections”
    A Tech Policy Press article co-authored by Elise Silva and Beth Schwanke of the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security references CIP election rumor research around how “claims of fraud on Election Day dropped dramatically as it became clear President-elect Trump would win.”

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