News coverage from October 2024 about the Center for an Informed Public and CIP-affiliated research and researchers.
- Este Pais (October 1, 2024): “Desinformación y odio en las elecciones de Estados Unidos”
CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson was interviewed by Mexican political affairs magazine Este Pais about election rumors in the 2024 U.S. election.
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- The Washington Post (October 2, 2024) “Trump and his allies are not planning to concede another electoral loss”
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump referenced an October 1 CIP election rumor research analysis analyzing false claims that Democrats would use the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to commit voter fraud.
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- Cyberscoop (October 4, 2024): “Election offices are preparing for a smooth voting process — and angry voters”
Cyberscoop interviewed CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson as part of a story about how election officials were preparing to address misleading claims of voter fraud and election malfeasance. Cyberscoop wrote: “The Center for an Informed Public, a research institution at the University of Washington, has long opted to use the phrase “rumors” when describing many of the viral claims that can spread around elections. Danielle Lee Tomson, a research manager at the center, told CyberScoop that while there are instances where terms like “disinformation” or “misinformation” can be accurate, their usage after the 2016 election cycle may make target audiences more defensive than receptive.”
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- The Seattle Times (October 4, 2024): “A new director takes up the fight at UW Center for an Informed Public”
In his Save the Free Press column in The Seattle Times, Brier Dudley interviews UW Information School associate professor Emma S. Spiro, who started a three-year term as the CIP’s faculty director.
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- Reuters (October 5, 2024): “U.S. officials struggle to quash Hurricane Helene conspiracy theories”
Reuters cited comments from CIP co-founder Kate Starbird about the challenges of making sense of uncertainty during unfolding disasters: “Manipulating the sensemaking process (e.g. spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation) and politicizing the event will both make it harder to respond and recover now — and to make informed decisions about how to prepare for and mitigate the next one,” Starbird said.
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- Heatmap (October 9, 2024): “These hurricanes have birthed a new kind of climate denial”
CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson was interviewed about the potential impacts of Hurricane Helene on the 2024 U.S. election. “What’s different about this natural disaster is the timing. We’ve never had such an incredible, devastating natural disaster within weeks of a presidential election that has impacted two swing states,” North Carolina and Georgia.
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- NBC News (October 10, 2024): “False conspiracy theories that Hurricane Milton is part of a political plot are still spreading”
NBC News quoted a section of an October 9 CIP election rumor research post analyzing election rumors emerging from Hurricane Helene: “At the moment, as state and local election boards work quickly to communicate their plans, there is lingering uncertainty around the extent of the storm’s impacts on election processes and how they might be addressed,” the center said in its report. “It is therefore not surprising to see rumors emerging from within communities grappling with the anxiety and uncertainty of the event — or to see bad actors attempting to exploit these conditions to push strategic narratives and unfounded conspiracy theories for political gain. With Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall this week in Florida, we anticipate rumoring to continue.”
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- UW Daily (October 10, 2024): “UW Center for an Informed Public presents election rumor research”
The UW Daily covered a CIP-led panel discussion on its election rumor research, organized by part of a special Democracy in Focus series from UW Provost Tricia Serio, and featured comments from CIP co-founder and director Emma S. Spiro, an Information School associate professor; CIP postdoctoral scholar Mert Can Bayar; CIP senior research scientist Rachel Moran-Prestridge, an iSchool affiliate assistant professor; and CIP graduate research assistant Zarine Kharazian, a doctoral candidate in the UW Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. “Researchers are asking questions … that look comparatively across different platforms,” Kharazian said. “How the way that different platforms structure online communities or interactions affect how information and misinformation spread.”
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- The Guardian (October 11, 2024): “How could hurricane misinformation affect the U.S. election?”
The Guardian interviewed CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson for an article about election-related rumors and conspiracy theories emerging from the impacts of Hurricane Helene.
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- Fast Company (October 11, 2024): “Elon Musk is hampering hurricane relief efforts—and using X to do it”
A CIP election rumor research blog post, “Making sense of election rumors emerging from Hurricane Helene,” was referenced in an article in Fast Company.
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- Lawfare (October 11, 2024): “Lawfare Daily: Lies and rumors after Hurricanes Helene and Milton”
Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with CIP co-founder Kate Starbird about why rumors spread after disasters, whether the flood of falsehoods is worse this time around, and how confusion following Hurricane Helene may set the groundwork for future conspiracy theories about the November 2024 U.S. election election.
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- Marketplace (October 15, 2024): “A deluge of online misinformation obscures FEMA disaster relief efforts”
A CIP election rumor research blog post, “Making sense of election rumors emerging from Hurricane Helene,” was referenced in a Marketplace Tech interview segment.
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- Politico (October 15, 2024): “The hurricanes may be over — but disinformation persists”
CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson was interviewed as part of a Politico Tech podcast episode about election-related rumors and conspiracy theories emerging from Hurricane Helene.
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- National Public Radio (October 17, 2024): “How to avoid sharing election misinformation”
“A lot of misleading information is created intentionally to sow confusion or to create an emotional reaction. So if it’s doing that in you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that what you’ve read is wrong, but it is a good cue to sort of slow down,” CIP senior research scientist Rachel Moran-Prestridge said in an interview with NPR.
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- CNN (October 21, 2024): “How Republicans pushed social media companies to stop fighting election misinformation”
CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson said in an interview with CNN: “Our ability to look at Facebook has been curtailed with CrowdTangle being shut down, so we don’t use that as much for our discovery work,” Tomson added, but “we study ads, we study TikTok, we study Telegram, we study the alt-platforms. … Changes breed creativity, and changes also create new research questions.”
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- Nature (October 22, 2024): “I’ve been studying misinformation for a decade — here are the rumours to watch out for on US election day”
CIP co-founder Kate Starbird writes in Nature World View commentary article: “As anxiety about the outcome mounts, and with conspiracy theories about the 2020 election results lingering, the stage is set for a period of intense rumouring about voting and counting-related processes.”
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- The Washington Post (October 22, 2024): “Misinformation is everywhere this election. Can you tell what’s real?”
The CIP provided insights and expertise for a Washington Post online quiz for people to test their skills at spotting online falsehoods about elections.
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- NBC News (October 25, 2024): ‘Big lie’ 2.0: How Trump’s false claims about noncitizens voting lay the groundwork to undermine the election
CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson and CIP postdoctoral scholar Mert Can Bayar were interviewed for a NBC News article about non-citizen voting narratives in the 2024 U.S. election. “This is the attention economy,” said Danielle Tomson, research manager at the Center for an Informed Public. “There is a very consolidated and dedicated community of people who are interested in rumors about election fraud, about noncitizen voting, and about border insecurity.”
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- Investigate West (October 29, 2024): “The University of Washington is trying to weather a storm of setbacks for misinformation researchers”
Features interviews with CIP co-founder Kate Starbird, CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson, and CIP graduate research assistant Joey Schafer.
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- The Conversation (October 30, 2024): “Misinformation is more than just bad facts: How and why people spread rumors is key to understanding how false information travels and takes root”
CIP graduate research assistant Stephen Prochaska and CIP co-founder Kate Starbird co-authored an article for The Conversation about how “misinformation” may not be the best label for describing some of the information dynamics they study. They wrote: “Our team at the University of Washington has studied online rumors and misinformation for more than a decade. Since 2020, we have focused on rapid analysis of falsehoods about U.S. election administration, from sincere confusion about when and where to vote to intentional efforts to sow distrust in the process. Our motivations are to help quickly identify emerging rumors about election administration and analyze the dynamics of how these rumors take shape and spread online.”
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- NBC News (October 29, 2024): “How Elon Musk turned X into a pro-Trump echo chamber”
CIP postdoctoral scholar Mert Can Bayar was interviewed by NBC News about research into influential “newsbroker” accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The information environment on X is becoming more and more oligarchical when it comes to a few accounts controlling the supply of news,” Bayar told NBC News.
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- Science (October 30, 2024): “The rumor clinic: At the Center for an Informed Public, Kate Starbird tracks falsehoods and counters them in real time”
A feature article in Science by Kai Kupferschmidt focuses on CIP co-founder Kate Starbird and the CIP’s work to study election rumors. In addition to interviews with Starbird, Kupferschmidt spoke with CIP co-founders Emma Spiro and Jevin West and CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson. Kupferschmidt wrote: “Starbird and her colleagues have spent more than 4 years studying the rumors that swirl around elections. It’s not purely an academic interest: As they amass data, the team writes rapid research blogs explaining to journalists, election officials, and the public what rumors are circulating and where they are coming from—and correcting the record.” The article also cites a July 2024 Science commentary co-authored by Starbird and CIP co-founder Ryan Calo, who wrote about the considerable impact political and legal attacks have had on misinformation research and academic freedom: “The real problem some politicians have with the research is that it can blunt ideological campaigns to mislead the public,” Starbird and Calo wrote.
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- PolitFact (October 30, 2024) “All results won’t be known on election night. That’s normal”
PolitiFact cites Part 1 of the CIP election rumor research team’s “What to expect when we’re electing” series for an article about how election processes can create an environment for uncertainty. “This variation and complexity of vote counting contributes to confusion that bolsters rumoring and conspiracy theorizing about the integrity of the process,” the CIP wrote.
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- National Public Radio (October 29, 2024): “Voting officials face an ‘uphill battle’ to fight election lies”
In an interview with NPR, CIP research manager Danielle Lee Tomson discussed evidence-generation infrastructure in the 2024 U.S. election. “If you see something seemingly suspicious, and then you take a picture of it and post it online, that can be decontextualized so quickly and not take into account all of the various remedies or the fact that there’s nothing suspicious there at all,” she said.
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- The Guardian (October 30, 2024): “Factchecking the most pervasive myths and lies about U.S. elections”
The Guardian referenced CIP election rumor research into the spread of unfounded claims that Democrats are using the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to commit voter fraud.
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- Science (October 30, 2024): “A field’s dilemmas: Misinformation research has exploded. But scientists are still grappling with fundamental challenges.”
CIP co-founders Kate Starbird and Jevin West were both interviewed for a Science feature that looks at five of the biggest challenges the misinformation research field faces as researchers look to better understand our information ecosystem. That includes defining what misinformation is. “There’s plenty of examples, where things are true, but they are completely misleading, which is a form of misinformation as well,” said West, a UW Information School associate professor.
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- Spectrum Local News (October 30, 2024): “Helping non-native English speakers combat misinformation this election season”
A CIP election rumor research blog post from June 2024, “Discrepancy in implementations of social media election information policies in English and Spanish in-platform searches,” was referenced in a Spectrum Local News report in Buffalo, New York.
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- National Public Radio (October 31, 2024): “Crowdsourced voting fraud claims could become grist for Republican lawsuits”
CIP co-founder Kate Starbird was interviewed by NPR for a story about the spread of unsubstantiated voter fraud claims online, which could become grist for Republican lawsuits contesting election results should President Donald Trump lose. “What we’re seeing … is a kind of motivated misinterpretation where people [who are] skeptical already … of whether elections are trustworthy — they’ve been told by some of their favorite candidates in some cases, that we can’t trust the results … if that candidate doesn’t win,” Starbird said.
