Regulations against misinformation already exist in forty-eight states
The last two presidential election cycles have brought increased attention to the extent of misinformation – and outright lies – peddled by political candidates, their surrogates, and others who seek to influence election outcomes. Given the ubiquity of this speech, especially online, one might assume that there are no laws against lying in politics. It turns out that the opposite is true. Although the federal government has largely stayed out of regulating the content of election-related speech, the states have been surprisingly active in passing laws that prohibit false statements associated with elections.
This article finds forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have such laws (Maine and Vermont are the exceptions). For this report, the authors reviewed more than 125 state statutes that regulate the content of election-related speech. These laws take one of two basic forms: statutes that directly target the content of election-related speech, and generally applicable statutes that indirectly implicate election-related speech by prohibiting intimidation or fraud associated with an election. They show that these election-speech statutes deviate from longstanding theories of liability for false speech. First, the statutes cover a broader range of speech than has traditionally been subject to government restriction: the statutes cover everything from merely derogatory statements about candidates (defamation requires false statements that create a degree of moral opprobrium) to false information about ballot measures, voting procedures, and incumbency. Second, a substantial number of the statutes impose liability regardless of whether the speaker knew the information was false or acted negligently. If nothing else, these statutes provide a partial roadmap for identifying the types of speech – and election harms – that may warrant intervention.
Education impacts belief gaps, but the effects are not evenly felt across issues or political affiliations
In this article for the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Shannon McGregor and her co-authors Magdalena Saldaña and Tom Johnson explore the relationships among political identity, education, and the prevalence of false beliefs about topics that have become politically polarized. To more fully understand the belief gap hypothesis, this study examines the effect of political identity, education, and partisan media consumption on the formation of attitudes and false beliefs. Using a two-wave, nationally representative online survey of the U.S., the authors assess people’s attitudes and beliefs toward climate change, on the one hand, and Syrian refugees, on the other. Building on previous studies, they demonstrate that the effect of one’s political identity on attitudes and false beliefs is contingent upon education, which appears to widen the belief gap in consort with political identity.
Media literacy can sometimes spread disinformation - with a little help from search engine algorithms
The Propagandists’ Playbook peels back the layers of the right-wing media manipulation machine to reveal why its strategies are so effective and pervasive, while also humanizing the people whose worldviews and media practices conservatism embodies. Based on interviews and ethnographic observations of two Republican groups over the course of the 2017 Virginia gubernatorial race—including the author’s firsthand experience of the 2017 Unite the Right rally—the book considers how Google algorithms, YouTube playlists, pundits, and politicians can manipulate audiences, reaffirm beliefs, and expose audiences to more extremist ideas, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Francesca Tripodi argues that conservatives who embody the Christian worldview give authoritative weight to original texts and interrogate the media using the same tools taught to them in Bible study—for example, using Google to “fact check” the news. The result of this practice, tied to conservative marketing tactics, is more than a reaffirmation of existing beliefs: it is a radicalization of content and a changing of narratives adopted by the media. Tripodi also demonstrates the pervasiveness of white supremacy in the conservative media ecosystem, as well as its mainstream appeal, scope, and spread.