Dispatch From the Senate Intelligence Committee
Here’s what you need to know:
The Republican Party has increasingly created and used political microsites designed to look like local news sites as a political tactic. Here’s why that’s bad for democracy.
Last fall, Arizona Senate candidate Kelli Ward touted an endorsement from the Arizona Monitor on her Facebook page. Ward’s campaign must have really liked the endorsement because it reprinted it in full on her campaign website. But what is the Arizona Monitor? Is it a local news site? A blog covering local politics in Arizona? Or is it something else entirely?
A Politico investigation found that the Arizona Monitor “launched just a few weeks before publishing the endorsement, and its domain registration is hidden, masking the identity of its owner. On its Facebook page, it is classified as a news site, but scant other information is offered.” Inquiries to Arizona politicos didn’t turn up anything either, with some telling the outlet that “they could only scratch their heads” and were befuddled by the site’s background.
There’s nothing wrong with a local political blog supporting Ward’s campaign, or Ward’s team touting a friendly endorsement on her campaign website and social media. But political campaigns are notoriously overcautious about what they post on social media. Campaigns don’t normally highlight an endorsement from entities no one has heard of, especially when it launched just a few weeks prior. Politico noted that Ward denied any knowledge about the site on Facebook. Given that, there are two obvious questions: Is Arizona Monitor a phony news site meant to fool voters on Kelli Ward’s behalf? If so, who exactly is paying for it?
We may never know who was behind the Arizona Monitor, as the site crumbled quickly after coming under scrutiny. Initially, it posted an article defending itself, but as I was writing this the website was deleted, as well as the site’s Twitter and Facebook pages. Local political blogs don’t generally operate this way; they relish being attacked by larger media outlets (the posture Arizona Monitor initially took) and do not disappear suddenly when attacked. Given its hasty exit from the internet, it’s not unreasonable to speculate that Arizona Monitor was some kind of front.
American mass shootings are by now a familiar tragedy. Mis/disinformation popping up immediately as news of another mass shooting breaks is just as familiar. Within minutes of the news breaking 4chan and 8chan were spinning conspiracy theories, flooding social media with disinformation just as Americans were turning to Twitter and Facebook to get breaking news about the shooting. I’ll confess to falling for a piece of misinfo myself and initially tweeting it, despite being well aware of this pattern.
As usual, Buzzfeed has the most comprehensive list of hoaxes related to this week’s mass shooting. Snopes debunks the rumor that the shooter was a Dreamer. Alex Jones told his listeners that the shooting may have been a false flag organized by Democrats and Gateway Pundit’s Lucian Wintrich promoted a fake Buzzfeed article ostensibly about the shooting. Disinformation meant to smear reporters covering the shooting has also appeared online. As J.M. Berger pointed out on Twitter, social media platforms continue to help false information and conspiracy theories spread.
Silicon Valley readers you won’t want to miss this one: CoWorker.org, one of my favorite advocacy organizations, is hosting an event on Computational Propaganda on Wednesday, February 28 at 7 PM. Learn more and RSVP at the link below.
Computational Propaganda: A Conversation With Tech Industry Employees
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