Researcher of online rumors & disinformation. Former basketball player. Prof at University of Washington, HCDE. Co-founder of the UW Center for an Informed Public. Personal account: Views may not reflect those of my employer.
Kate Starbird
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Matt Taibbi's defamation case against Rep Kamager-Dove has been tossed. He sued her because she asked why the Republicans, in yet another hearing about the CeNsoRshIp iNDusTriAl cOmPlex (which doesn't exist) kept inviting a "serial sexual harasser".
Here, relive and savor the moment:
The architecture of the internet creates risks for democracy | Science. Really important short-read from Stephan Lewandowsky. Might be of interest to @brianstelter.bsky.social & @jayrosen.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
In 2022 I wrote about election rumors and how *the same ones recur* bc of tropes — familiar plot elements
🗳️ “Found ballots” — in a ditch! in a dumpster!
🚌“Bussed in voters”
🪦 “Dead voters”
⚙️“Rigged machines!”
📡 Space lasers! (Not kidding)
(Gift link)
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Shirley and company are doing us all a favor of sorts — so we can debunk all of these “rigged elation” rumors (again) now, during the primaries, and prevent well-meaning people from falling for them in the Fall when they could be more impactful.
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In political conspiracy theories, as in television shows, the plot elements are always the same.
Will democracy survive the internet? Do we need to choose between Facebook’s surveillance capitalism or democracy? Layered lines of evidence can inform questions like these. When considered together, ...
www.science.org
Hope everyone is buckled up for midterms this year. I expect this sort of election denialism stuff is going to make 2020 look quaint in comparison.
Kate Starbird
Renee DiResta
Renee DiResta
Jen Mercieca
I worked for DOJ for 25 years and Trump has turned it into a trash bin of abuse and corruption in a matter of a year. It's heartbreaking.
www.nytimes.com/2026/06/08/u...
In Georgia, a Trump-aligned conspiracy theorist is claiming tons of voters fraudulently registered at "vacant" houses.
Well, sometimes the USPS "vacant" flag is wrong.
A guy from the election board talked to me about why they don't just "knock on every door"
thecurrentga.org/2026/05/15/g...
Jared Holt
The Post corrected this quickly, but it makes you wonder what their inputs were.
Raman didn't concede. Her full speech was on C-Span, 12 minutes, easy fact check. The "she cried bc she lost" stuff was entirely RW X/YouTube chatter.
Randy Fine claims people are literally dumpster diving for fraudulent ballots in California 😆
cool story, bro
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Michael J. Stern
Aaron Rupar
The Washington Post editorial board printing a straight up right-wing lie
If you were thinking “huh, wonder if they showed up at some voter’s house because there was some filler birthdate in the database, maybe something like super obvious from 126 years ago like, idk, 1/1/1900” than wow great guess spot on.
Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray”
Chatham County, Georgia sent out 1,313 letters to registered voters whose addresses were flagged as 'potentially vacant', but no voter registrations have been canceled as a result of the letters and t...
Also note that, like many of the Somali immigrants he at daycare centers Shirley “investigated” this past winter, this old lady (and the younger women at the house with her) were unwilling to open the door for Shirley and his outrage bait production team.
