- Democrats and left-leaning media are blaming the expected midterm red wave on “misinformation,” refusing to acknowledge that voters may be choosing not to support them based on accurate information about their performance.
- Twitter under the leadership of Elon Musk and conservative media projects focused on winning over minority voters have been targets of Democrats’ blame, and the media has accused both of promoting “misinformation.”
- “The narrative has been set by Democrats and their allies in the media that as soon as Elon Musk took over Twitter, misinformation would spread. It’s entirely predictable, and the leftist alliance simply wasn’t prepared for the course correction desperately needed on a platform that used to censor conservatives,” Mike Davis, president of the Internet Accountability Project, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Democrats are blaming their projected midterm losses on “misinformation,” which they claim is responsible for their declining popularity.
Democratic politicians and left-leaning media figures are preemptively blaming the expected red wave on Elon Musk’s Twitter buyout and ensuing changes in the platform’s censorship policies. They’re also blaming their declining popularity among minority voters on conservative media outreach projects aimed at those communities, which they have labeled “misinformation.”
“The narrative has been set by Democrats and their allies in the media that as soon as Elon Musk took over Twitter, misinformation would spread. It’s entirely predictable, and the leftist alliance simply wasn’t prepared for the course correction desperately needed on a platform that used to censor conservatives,” Mike Davis, president of the Internet Accountability Project, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Free speech is vital to a free and fair system, and we should all welcome the fact that Twitter is no longer a communications arm of the far left.”
Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized Oct. 17, and he quickly fired several top executives including head of legal policy, trust and safety, Vijaya Gadde, who had been involved in content moderation policies such as the decision to ban then-President Donald Trump from the platform in 2021. Democrats have expressed fear that Musk’s takeover will result in more relaxed content moderation and a surge in misinformation on the site, which some of them claim is a threat to election integrity. (RELATED: Rogan: ‘Woke’ Left Wants Censorship Because The Right Got Good At Social Media)
Stacey Abrams explaining her poll numbers: “Unfortunately, this year, black men have been a very targeted population for misinformation. Not misinformation about what they want but about why they want what they deserve.” pic.twitter.com/HhPxK0vVgj
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) November 6, 2022
“Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that spews lies all across the world,” President Joe Biden said. “There’s no editors anymore in America.”
Twitter moderators create curated content pages for news stories and trending topics which include context about the story which is often slanted in favor of Democrats’ talking points, according to The Washington Post. Musk reportedly laid off the entire team behind those efforts Friday.
The controversy comes two years after Twitter suppressed and censored the New York Post’s story about emails on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop regarding a meeting between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a Ukrainian gas executive.
“Ahead of what looks to be a resounding midterm defeat, Democrats and the media (pardon the redundancy) are engaging in their favorite form of election denialism: the “misinformation” trope,” Jorge Bonilla, director of Media Research Center Latino, told the DCNF. “By pushing these tropes in the face of defeat rather than engaging in retrospection over their lost power and influence, the left (and the media) prove that they’ve learned nothing.”
Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said Georgia Democrats were seeing waning support among black men because they were targets of misinformation in a recent appearance on MSNBC’s “Velshi.”
“Unfortunately, this year, black men have been a very targeted population for misinformation. Not misinformation about what they want but about why they want what they deserve,” Abrams said.
White House adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms echoed Abrams’ point in a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
“If the policies are so good, why is communicating them such a problem?” interviewer Margaret Brennan asked.
“Well it’s been a very difficult couple of years. We’ve been in the midst of a pandemic, there’s been a lot of misinformation flooding the airwaves,” Bottoms said. “We see it in ways not just on television but we’re seeing it through YouTube. We’re seeing it on other social media platforms. So it is more difficult to get the message out.”
Twitter and Musk did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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