On Politics: Why debunked falsehoods about Haitian migrants gained traction
Good evening! Tonight, my colleague Tiffany Hsu, who covers misinformation and disinformation, explains why false claims about Haitians in Ohio spread so widely even after they were debunked. We're also covering Democratic groups' warning about key voting blocs, and the way Republicans have talked about abortion in recent days. — Jess Bidgood
Why debunked falsehoods about Haitian migrants gained traction
The latest, with 42 days to go
The false narrative that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were killing and eating pets was quickly and decisively debunked this month. But that did not prevent the rumor from catapulting across the national stage for weeks. In early September, a Springfield resident published an error-riddled Facebook post that relied on what she later called a "game of telephone." She deleted the post and disavowed it, but on Sept. 5, a conservative user posted it on X. On Sept. 9, Springfield officials discredited the claim — but by then, it was already too late. It was racing through an online ecosystem primed to amplify disinformation. On Sept. 10, Donald Trump supercharged the narrative by referring to it during the presidential debate. Despite an immediate fact check from one of the debate moderators, the false story line exploded online and in the real world, propelled by conservative news outlets, political leaders and social media influencers. Here's why disinformation — usually defined as false information that its peddlers know is deceptive — has been so difficult to rein in during a particularly chaotic campaign cycle. Living the memeEven as the animal cruelty disinformation led to tangible harassment and threats in Springfield, the narrative was being played for laughs online. Trump and a coterie of allies — including Elon Musk, the owner of X — blitzed the internet with artificially generated images of pets in fantastical situations. Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, egged supporters on by urging them on X to "keep the cat memes flowing." TikTok videos showed families applying seasonings to their pets in jest; a South African musician created a viral TikTok remix of Trump's debate comment and then performed it live in Munich, posting about the event on X accompanied by a laughing emoji. The joking tone, which can make disinformation seem more acceptable and less dangerous, has crossed into the real world in the case of the false pets narrative. The Republican Party in Arizona erected a dozen billboards riffing on Chick-fil-A ads, with the message "EAT LESS KITTENS — Vote Republican!" Fake it till you make itElected officials like Vance promoted the story even as they admitted it might not be true. In this case, even before the debate, Vance admitted that "it's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false." Days later, he said he was willing "to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people." The tactic's success hinges on a number of cognitive biases, such as the tendency to believe things that we hear frequently, or that are easiest to remember, or that we already expect to be true. "'I'll believe it when I see it' — that was the phrase we used to use," said Michael Mosser, the former executive director of the Global Disinformation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. "Now, it's 'I'll see it when I believe it.'" Disinformation can be profitableGoing viral online can translate into real money for the people who amplify disinformation. In a 72-hour period after Mr. Trump promoted the pet falsehood during the debate, a handful of YouTube videos that echoed his claim were accompanied by ads from Mazda, Adobe and more than a dozen other large brands, which most likely earned the video creators several thousand dollars collectively, according to Eko, a group focused on corporate accountability. A substantial chunk of the ad revenue would have also gone to YouTube. With more than a quarter of Americans now believing that Haitians are abducting and eating dogs and cats — including 52 percent of likely Trump voters, according to polling by YouGov, a market research firm — influencers and the platforms that house them are incentivized to continue serving up the falsehood to draw attention. A vulnerable news ecosystemA grim outlook for the news business and growing distrust of professional media outlets have caused many people to seek information and local stories from social media, where lax content moderation and engagement-driven algorithms helped the animal cruelty narrative gain momentum. Websites posing as independent news outlets while being secretly funded by partisan groups, sometimes known as pink slime websites, now outnumber daily newspapers in the United States, according to Newsguard, a group that tracks misinformation. Northwestern University found last year that 204 counties around the country are news deserts, lacking newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms or ethnic publications, with another 228 counties at risk of the same fate. A third of adults in the United States told Pew Research Center this summer that they regularly got news from Facebook and YouTube. Disinformation without bordersThe false pets narrative blasted through the right-wing media ecosystem in the United States but also circulated around the world and across the borderless internet. Spanish-language and Latino-focused accounts, including some in Spain and Colombia, amplified the claims, according to Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas, a think tank. Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers on X, shared a video from a meeting of the Springfield City Commission that claimed to legitimize the pet-eating accounts. The false claims have come with real consequences for Springfield and for Haitian Americans around the country, but less so for Trump, Vance and the influencers spreading them. Trump has continued to fuel unfounded narratives: On Monday night, he targeted a different Haitian community, stoking fears about migrants in Charleroi, Pa. A warning for Democrats …A new memo, released by two of the leading Democratic groups working in battleground states, lays out worrying signs for Vice President Kamala Harris among younger voters and voters of color, Maya King reports. The groups say that Harris is trailing President Biden's levels of support in 2020 with Black, Latino and young voters in key swing states, and that more money is urgently needed to ramp up communications with them.
… and a warning for RepublicansDemocrats have worked hard this year to depict Republicans as the party of misogyny and of restrictions on women's rights, and polls showing a significant gender gap in the presidential and some down-ballot races suggest that their message is working. But if Republicans need to refine their appeals to women, not everyone seems to be getting the memo. On Friday, former President Donald Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to tell women that if he becomes president, "YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION." That same day, Bernie Moreno, a Republican businessman who is running to unseat Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said during a town hall that he did not understand why women of a certain age would even care about the issue. "It's a little crazy, by the way, but — especially for women that are, like, past 50 — I'm thinking to myself: I don't think that's an issue for you," Moreno said, according to a video obtained by a local NBC affiliate. Polling shows that many voters are, in fact, thinking about abortion. A poll taken this month by The New York Times and Siena College found that 15 percent of voters named abortion as the most important issue to their vote — a group that includes 22 percent of women and 13 percent of voters 65 and older. On Tuesday, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and a Republican who is voting for Trump, warned on X that comments like Moreno's could cost her party at the polls. "Are you trying to lose the election?" she wrote. "Asking for a friend." — Jess Bidgood Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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