Digital Smarts - Facebook Failing When It Comes to Misinformation in Georgia Runoff Elections

If you want to discuss with your kids how misinformation is creeping into our lives, you might want to use the upcoming Georgia runoff elections as a case study of how things are getting out of hand on social media. The full force of 2020’s most effective fake news tactics is hitting the state: fears of widespread voter fraud, allegations of violence, and claims about candidates’ socialism. But despite its much-touted efforts to add warning or fact-checking labels to election disinformation, Facebook is failing to do exactly that on more than half of the questionable posts related to the Georgia races, according to a new analysis by Avaaz, a nonprofit that tracks online disinformation. The group found that Facebook failed to add fact-checking labels to at least 60% of a cross-section of Georgia-related election misinformation that reached thousands of voters. An analysis of more than 200 posts promoting a dozen false claims about the Georgia elections in both English and Spanish showed how the posts followed a now well-worn playbook of amplifying disinformation that has proven effective in recent months. This includes falsehoods about widespread voter fraud, fake rumors about acts of violence targeting African-American voters, and allegations that Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock had “celebrated” Cuban leader Fidel Castro.