The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

B4 Y THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESSTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020

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The coup falsehood was just one
piece of misinformation that has
gone viral in right-wing circles
ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3. In
another unsubstantiated rumor
that is circulating on Facebook
and Twitter, a secret network of
elites was planning to destroy the
ballots of those who voted for Mr.
Trump. And in yet another fabri-
cation, supporters of Mr. Trump
said an elite cabal planned to
block them from entering polling
locations on Election Day.
All of the rumors appeared to be
having the same effect: riling up
Mr. Trump’s restive base, just as

the president has publicly stoked
the idea of election chaos. In com-
ment after comment about the
falsehoods, respondents said the
only way to stop violence from the
left was to respond in kind with
force.
“Liberals and their propagan-
da,” one commenter wrote. “Bring
that nonsense to country folks
who literally sit in wait for days to
pull a trigger.”
The misinformation, which has
been amplified by right-wing me-
dia like the Fox News host Mark
Levin and outlets like Breitbart
and The Daily Wire, adds con-
tentiousness to an already pow-
der-keg campaign season. Mr.
Trump has repeatedly declined to
say whether he would accept a
peaceful transfer of power if he
lost to his Democratic challenger,
Joseph R. Biden Jr., and has urged
his supporters “to go into the polls
and watch very carefully.”
The falsehoods on social media
are building support for the idea of
disrupting the election. Election
officials have said they fear voter
harassment and intimidation on
Election Day.
“This is extremely concerning,”
said Megan Squire, a computer
science professor at Elon Univer-
sity in Elon, N.C., who tracks ex-
tremists online. Combined with
Mr. Trump’s comments, the false
rumors are “giving violent vigi-
lantes an excuse” that acting out

in real life would be “in defense of democracy,” she said. Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman, said Mr. Trump would “accept the results of an election that is free, fair and without fraud” and added that the question of violence was “better put to Democrats.” In a text message, Mr. Bongino said that the idea of a Democratic coup was “not a rumor” and that he was busy “exposing LIBERAL violence.” Distorted information about the election is also flowing in left-wing circles online, though to a lesser degree, according to a New York Times analysis. Such misinformation includes a viral falsehood that mailboxes were being blocked by unknown actors to effectively dis- courage people from voting. Other popular leftist sites, like Liberal Blogger and The Other 98%, have also twisted facts to push a critical narrative about Re- publicans, according to PolitiFact, a fact-checking website. In one in- flammatory claim last week, for instance, the left-wing Facebook page Occupy Democrats asserted that Mr. Trump had directly in- spired a plot by a right-wing group to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Social media companies appear increasingly alarmed by how their platforms may be manipulated to stoke election chaos. Facebook and Twitter took steps last week to clamp down on false information before and after the vote. Face- book barred groups and posts re- lated to the pro-Trump conspiracy movement QAnon and said it would suspend political advertis- ing postelection. Twitter said it was changing some basic features to slow the way information flowed on its network. On Friday, Twitter executives urged people “to recognize our collective responsibility to the electorate to guarantee a safe, fair and legitimate democratic process this November.” Of the lies, Facebook said it was “removing calls for interference or violence at polling places” and would label posts that sought to delegitimize the results. YouTube said it was not recommending videos containing the false rumors, while Twitter said sharing links to disputed news stories was permit- ted if the tweets did not violate its rules. Even so, the idea of a Democrat- led coup has gained plenty of trac- tion online in recent weeks. It has made its way into at least 938 Facebook groups, 279 Facebook pages, 33 YouTube videos and

hundreds of tweets, a Times analysis found. The unfounded claim traces back to an Aug. 11 letter from two former military officers, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, to the country’s top military official, Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to researchers at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London- based research organization. In their public letter, Mr. Nagl and Mr. Yingling asked General Milley to have military forces ready to es- cort Mr. Trump from the White House grounds if he lost the election and refused to leave. Some online commentators seized on the letter as evidence of a coming left-wing coup. “Bootlickers Nagl and Yingling suggest a violent military coup,” read one post on Facebook on Aug. 12, which got 619 likes and comments and linked to the letter. That same day, Infowars, a conspiracy theory website, also published a piece claiming that re- tired Army officers were openly talking about a coup by Demo- crats. Mr. Nagl and Mr. Yingling did not respond to requests for comment. On Sept. 4, the right-wing outlet The National Pulse added to the conspiracy. It published a piece pointing to what it said were the “radical, anti-democratic tactics” of the Transition Integrity Project, a bipartisan group of former gov- ernment officials who analyzed how to prevent a disrupted presi- dential election and transition. The group published a report on Aug. 3 about its efforts, but The

National Pulse said the document showed “an impending attempt to delegitimize the election coming from the far left.” Trey Grayson, a Republican former secretary of state of Ken- tucky and a member of the Transi- tion Integrity Project, said the idea that the group was preparing a left-wing coup was “crazy.” He said the group had explored many election outcomes, including a vic- tory by Mr. Trump. Michael Anton, a former national security adviser to Presi- dent Trump, also published an es- say on Sept. 4 in the conservative publication The American Mind, claiming, “Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes.” His article was the tipping point for the coup claim. It was posted more than 500 times on Facebook and reached 4.9 million people, according to CrowdTangle, a Face- book-owned analytics tool. Right-

wing news sites like The Federal- ist and DJHJ Media ramped up coverage of the idea, as did Mr. Bongino. Mr. Anton did not respond to a call for comment. The lie also began metastasiz- ing. In one version, right-wing commentators claimed, without proof, that Mr. Biden would not concede if he lost the election. They also said his supporters would riot. “If a defeated Biden does not concede and his party’s rioters take to the streets in a coup attempt against President Trump, will the military be needed to stop them?” tweeted Mr. Levin, the Fox News host, on Sept. 18. His message was shared nearly 16,000 times. After The Times contacted him, Mr. Levin published a note on Facebook saying his tweet had been a “sarcastic response to the Democrats.” Bill Russo, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement that Mr. Biden would accept how the people voted. “Donald Trump and Mike Pence are the ones who refuse to commit to a peaceful transfer of power,” he said. On YouTube, dozens of videos pushing the false coup narrative have collectively gathered more than 1.2 million views since Sept. 7, according to a tally by The Times. One video was titled “RED ALERT: Are the President’s Ene- mies Preparing a COUP?” The risk of misinformation translating to real-world action is growing, said Mike Caulfield, a digital literacy expert at Washing- ton State University Vancouver. “What we’ve seen over the past four years is an increasing capa- bility” from believers to turn these conspiracy narratives “into direct physical actions,” he said.

Ben Decker contributed research.

‘Liberals and their

propaganda. Bring

that nonsense to

country folks who

literally sit in wait for

days to pull a trigger.’

A commenter on a post spreading
falsehoods before the election.

Baseless Claims of Coup Stoke

Fears of Violence During Election

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

In a video on Facebook, Dan Bongino, a right-wing commentator, told his 3.6 million viewers that Democrats were planning a coup against the president.

ROY ROCHLIN/GETTY IMAGES

Mr. Bongino’s video elicited harsh reactions from Trump supporters. One said if Democrats “cross the line,” they would see what “true freedom” is.

sinister corners and taken on forms like
the internet meme, which is often a
screenshot overlaid with sensational
text or manipulated with doctored
images.
He named an example of a harmful
meme: Those attacking Breonna Tay-
lor, the Black medical worker in Lou-
isville, Ky., who was killed by the police
when they entered her home in March.
Misinformation spreaders generated
memes suggesting that Ms. Taylor shot
at police officers first, which was not
true.
“The meme is probably the most
dangerous,” Mr. Duke said. “In seven or
20 words, somebody can say something
that’s not true, and people will believe it
and share it. It takes two minutes to
create.”
It’s impossible to quantify how much
bad information is out there now be-
cause the spread of it online has been
relentless. Katy Byron, who leads a
media literacy program at the Poynter
Institute, a journalism nonprofit, and
who works with a group of teenagers
who regularly track false information,
said it was on the rise. Before the pan-
demic, the group would present a few
examples of misinformation every few
days. Now each student is reporting
multiple examples a day.
“With the pandemic, people are in-
creasingly online doomscrolling and
looking for information,” Ms. Byron
said. “It’s getting harder and harder to
find it and feel confident you’re con-
suming facts.”
The misinformation, she said, is also
creeping into videos. With modern
editing tools, it has become too easy for
people with little technical know-how
and minimal equipment to produce
videos that appear to have high produc-
tion value. Often, real video clips are
stripped of context and spliced together
to tell a different story.
The rise of false news is bad news for
all of us. Misinformation can be a detri-
ment to our well-being in a time when
people are desperately seeking infor-
mation such as health guidelines to
share with their loved ones about the
coronavirus. It can also stoke anger
and cause us to commit violence. Also
important: It could mislead us about
voting in a pandemic that has turned
our world upside down.
How do we adapt to avoid being
manipulated and spreading false infor-

mation to the people we care about? Past methods of spotting untruthful news, like checking articles for typos and phony web addresses that resem- ble those of trusted publications, are now less relevant. We have to employ more sophisticated methods of consum- ing information, like doing our own fact-checking and choosing reliable news sources. Here’s what we can do.

Be a Fact Checker Get used to this keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+T (or Command+T on a Mac). That creates a new browser tab in Chrome and Firefox. You’re going to be using it a lot. The reason: It enables you to ask questions and hopefully get some answers with a quick web search. It’s all part of an exercise that Ms. Byron calls lateral reading. While reading an article, Step 1 is to open a

browser tab. Step 2 is to ask yourself these questions:

■Who is behind the information?

■What is the evidence?

■What do other sources say? From there, with that new browser tab open, you could start answering those questions. You could do a web search on the author of the content when possible. You could do another search to see what other publications are saying about the same topic. If the claim isn’t being repeated elsewhere, it may be false. You could also open another browser tab to look at the evidence. With a meme, for example, you could do a reverse image search on the photo that was used in the meme. On Google.com, click Images and upload the photo or paste the web address of the photo into

the search bar. That will show where else the image has shown up on the web to verify whether the one you have seen has been manipulated. With videos, it’s trickier. A browser plug-in called InVID can be installed on Firefox and Chrome. When watching a video, you can click on the tool, click on the Keyframes button and paste in a video link (a YouTube clip, for example) and click Submit. From there, the tool will pull up important frames of the video, and you can reverse image search on those frames to see if they are legitimate or fake. Some of the tech steps above may not be for the faint of heart. But most important is the broader lesson: Take a moment to think. “The No. 1 rule is to slow down, pause and ask yourself, ‘Am I sure enough about this that I should share it?’ ” said Peter Adams, a senior vice

president of the News Literacy Project, a media education nonprofit. “If every- body did that, we’d see a dramatic reduction of misinformation online.”

Choose Your News Carefully While social media sites like Facebook and Twitter help us stay connected with the people we care about, there’s a downside: Even the people we trust may be unknowingly spreading false information, so we can be caught off guard. And with everything mashed together into a single social media feed, it gets tougher to distinguish good information from bad information, and fact from opinion. What we can do is another exercise in mindfulness: Be deliberate about where you get your information, Mr. Adams said. Instead of relying solely on the information showing up in your social media feeds, choose a set of publications that you trust, like a news- paper, a magazine or a broadcast news program, and turn to those regularly. Mainstream media is far from perfect, but it’s subjected to a standards process that is usually not seen in user- generated content, including memes. “A lot of people fall into the trap of thinking no source of information is perfect,” Mr. Adams said. “That’s when people really start to feel lost and over- whelmed and open themselves up to sources they really should stay away from.” The most frightening part about misinformation is when it transcends digital media and finds its way into the real world. Mr. Duke of Lead Stories said he and his wife had recently witnessed pro- testers holding signs with the message “#SavetheChildren.” The signs alluded to a false rumor spread by supporters of the QAnon conspiracy about a child- trafficking network led by top Demo- crats and Hollywood elites. The pro- Trump conspiracy movement had effectively hijacked the child-trafficking issue, mixing facts with its own fictions to suit its narrative. Conspiracy theories have fueled some QAnon believers to commit seri- ous crimes, including a murder in New York and conspiring to kidnap a child. “QAnon has gone from misinformation online to being out on the street corner,” he said. “That’s why I think it’s dangerous."

As Fictions Grow on Web, It’s Time to Slow Down and Be Skeptical

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

A Save the Children rally in St. Paul, Minn. Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have effectively hijacked the child-trafficking issue.

STEPHEN MATUREN/GETTY IMAGES

Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the largest poultry producers in the United States, said on Wednesday that it would pay $110.5 million to settle federal charges that it had helped fix prices and then passed on higher costs for chicken to con- sumers, restaurants and super- markets. The company, based in Col- orado, said it had agreed to the fine for “restraint of competition” in chicken sales in three contracts to a customer in the United States, according to the statement. The settlement, reached with the De- partment of Justice, will need to be approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The settlement comes after federal prosecutors ramped up pressure on top industry executives. In June, prosecutors indicted Jayson Penn, who was president and chief executive of Pilgrim’s Pride, and Roger Austin, its former vice president, on a price-fixing charge. Mr. Penn later left the company. The executives, and two others from Claxton Poultry, were accused of colluding from at least 2012 to 2017 to fix prices and rig bids across the United States. The Justice Department’s an- titrust division confirmed that it had entered into a plea agreement with Pilgrim’s Pride that was subject to court approval. It did not provide any details of the deal. A settlement could help ease pressure on Pilgrim’s Pride, which is among a number of major poultry producers that have been contending with price-fixing alle- gations for years. Pilgrim’s Pride said the agreement included a provision that the Justice Depart- ment would not bring any more charges against the company on this matter. The company also noted that it would not have to pay any restitution or be subject to monitoring under the agreement. Last year, the Justice Depart- ment intervened in a lawsuit brought by major chicken customers against Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson Foods and other producers. The lawsuit said the companies had made coordinated production cuts that led to signifi- cant increases in the price of broiler chicken, which makes up the vast majority of all the chicken meat sold in the United States. The customers noted that chicken prices were rising even while feed costs were falling. The companies disputed the al- legations.

$110 Million

Is Penalty

For Price Fix

By ESHE NELSON and CARLOS TEJADA

The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

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