News coverage from October 2022 about the Center for an Informed Public and CIP-affiliated research and researchers.
- Tech Policy Press (Oct. 2): “Election Misinformation Thrives on Major Social Media Platforms”
During a Tech Policy Press Sunday Show podcast interview with Justin Hendrix, CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield observed how a “larger complex interlocking narrative” based on distorted, misframed and false claims of voter fraud can do real harm when they “have pathways to respectability. These sorts of claims that are misleading or completely fabricated. If they have pathways to respectability, if they begin to be discussed among people that have power and make decisions and make laws and have opportunities to intervene in various parts of the election process, that’s where the real worry is.”
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- The Seattle Times (Oct. 2): “How election conspiracies cast a shadow over GOP, WA midterms”
CIP director Kate Starbird, a UW Human Centered Design & Engineering associate professor, was interviewed by The Seattle Times about the dynamics of election rumors, conspiracy theories and mid- and disinformation.
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- NBC News (Oct. 4): “How the Supreme Court could change the internet as we know it”
With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear three cases that could impact legal protections social media companies use and their control over online speech, entertainment, and information, CIP co-founder Ryan Calo, a UW School of Law professor, observed in an interview with NBC News that the high court’s rulings could also end up efforts to limit the spread and impacts of misinformation. “At a minimum, they [tech companies] are going to have to be much, much more careful about what they let on their platform, or much more careful about what they let their recommendation engines serve up for people,” he said.
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- National Public Radio (Oct. 13): “Eyeballs and AI power the research into how falsehoods travel online”
As part of a special series, “Untangling Disinformation,” NPR examined how misinformation researchers, including the CIP’s Taylor Agajanian and Jevin West, are preparing for the 2022 midterm U.S. elections. NPR notes that “the field is still in its infancy even as the threats to the democratic process posed by viral lies loom. Getting a sense of which falsehoods people online talk about might sound like a straightforward exercise, but it isn’t.”
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- HuffPost (Oct. 13): “Researchers tracked an election lie as it went viral on Twitter”
Can you visualize the journey of a lie? Especially as it goes viral? HuffPost interviewed CIP research analyst Stephen Prochaska, a UW Information School doctoral student working with the CIP as part of the Election Integrity Partnership, an academic research consortium tracking voting-related rumors, conspiracy theories and mis- and disinformation. “The underlying conspiracy theories themselves, those have been a part of public consciousness for long enough that people can reference it without actually saying a single word related to it,” Prochaska said. “They just put ‘accidentally’ in quotes, and suddenly their readers know what it is that they’re referencing.”
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- National Public Radio (Oct. 14): “How quotation marks turned a story about a clerical error into one about voter fraud”
In the age of high-volume misinformation, a clerical mistake can be perceived as a full-blown conspiracy. In a NPR interview, CIP research scientist Mike Caulfield discusses how a mistake by Colorado election officials set off a chain of rumors that can impact public perception of and trust in election administration.
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- KING5 TV (Oct. 17): “No, a social media post claiming there’s a serial killer in Seattle isn’t true”
“Misinformation in this form spreads quickly and easily. Not only was it a message easily re-shared, but it was also shared between friends and colleagues within the bartender community,” CIP research project manager Taylor Agajanian said in an interview about unfounded rumors about a serial killer in South Seattle and Burien spread quickly via social media, something that prompted official comments from the Seattle Police Department and the King County Sheriff’s Office to debunk the rumors.
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- SeattleMet (Oct. 18): “A misinformation researcher debunks a serial killer rumor”
In a feature story about how an unfounded rumor about a serial killer in the Seattle area spread so quickly via social media, CIP researcher Taylor Agajanian shares insights about how she debunked the rumor, which spread via “copypasta” techniques and compounded by a lack of trust in official sources of information, including efforts by local law enforcement to debunk the rumors. “Institutional mistrust contributes to the stickiness of these friend-of-a-friend claims.”
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- GeekWire (Oct. 18): “Debunked rumor of serial killer in Seattle offers another lesson in spotting misinformation”
CIP reseracher Taylor Agajanian discusses how she caught red flags around unfounded rumors about a Seattle area serial killer and shared tips to make ourselves more resilient to these types of false claims.
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- The New York Times (Oct. 20): “Teenagers and misinformation: Some starting points for teaching media literacy”
A New York Times Learning Network Lesson Plans guide that offers five ideas for improving media literacy skills features a 2021 interview with CIP research scientist and digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield, who emphasized the need to teach students critical thinking skills and evaluating sources of information.
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- Agence France Presse (Oct. 21) “U.S. Postal Service quashes rumors about ballots with insufficient postage”
CIP research was cited in an AFP fact check of misleading claims made about election procedures in Alsaka and Ohio regarding insufficient postage and absentee voting.
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- KING TV (Oct. 23): “Washington voters concerned about democracy, think vote-by-mail should expand: WA Poll”
How do Washington state voters perceive the nation’s democracy as it is currently? The WA Poll, sponsored by The Seattle Times, KING5 TV, the CIP and Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication points to some trends. In a KING 5 interview about recent poll results, Morgan Wack, a CIP graduate researcher and UW Political Science doctoral student, observed that “one of the keys to democracy is that it requires upkeep, and it requires acknowledgment from the public that you need to keep working towards a better democracy.”
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- Nieman Lab (Oct. 25): “What makes an election rumor go viral? Look at these 10 factors”
In a “guide for journalists and news organizations assessing voting- and election-related rumors in the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterms,” Nieman Lab published an adapted version of an Election Integrity Partnership blog post originally co-authored by the CIP’s Kate Starbird, Mike Caulfield, Emma S. Spiro and Madeline Jalbert.
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- PCMag (Oct. 25): “Can Twitter stamp out misinformation? Should it?”
Amid the challenges that social media platforms face with misinformation, “it is unclear how much Twitter can or will do to curb its spread.” In this article featuring four misinformation experts, including the CIP’s Mike Caulfield and Jevin West.
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- Northwest Asian Weekly (Oct. 27): “How to identify and avoid election misinformation—Rise in misinformation threatens to undermine voter trust and confidence”
Northwest Asian Weekly references results from a WA Poll of Washington residents co-sponsored by The Seattle Times, KING5 TV, the CIP and Washington State University’s Murrow College of Communication that found that 23% respondents said their level of trust in vote by mail has decreased since the 2020 General Election,” especially among Latino and conservative voters.
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- PCMag (Oct. 28): “Elon Musk is rolling the dice on democracy”
In an interview with PCMag, CIP co-founder Jevin West, a UW Information School associate professor discusses research about the effectiveness of different types of misinformation interventions on social media, including deplatforming.
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- Los Angeles Blade (Oct. 28): “Brazil’s fake news crisis is lethal for LGBT+ community”
Research co-authored by CIP faculty member and UW Department of Biology professor Carl Bergstrom – originally published in 2021 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and referenced in a March 2022 Science article – was quoted in a recent L.A. Blade story about misinformation, which “poses a risk to international peace, interferes with democratic decision-making, endangers the well-being of the planet, and threatens public health.”
