{"id":15203,"date":"2024-10-23T09:10:06","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T09:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=15203"},"modified":"2024-10-23T11:23:20","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T11:23:20","slug":"as-election-looms-disinformation-has-never-been-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=15203","title":{"rendered":"As Election Looms, Disinformation \u2018Has Never Been Worse\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A torrent of falsehoods, from home and abroad, have undermined what was once a shared faith in the honesty of America\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n

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The Democratic Party\u2019s vice-presidential nominee has been falsely accused of sexually molesting students. The claims have been spread by a former deputy sheriff from Florida, now openly working in Moscow<\/a> for Russia\u2019s propaganda apparatus, on dozens of social media platforms and fake news outlets.<\/p>\n

A faked video purporting to show one victim \u2014 creating fake people is a recurring Russian tactic<\/a> \u2014 received more than 5 million views on X, a platform owned by the world\u2019s richest man, Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has not only leaned all in<\/a> for the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, but he also used his platform to reanimate discredited claims about the validity of the election\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n

Smears, lies and dirty tricks \u2014 what we call disinformation today \u2014 have long been a feature of American presidential election campaigns. Two weeks before this year\u2019s vote, however, the torrent of half-truths, lies and fabrications, both foreign and homegrown, has exceeded anything that came before, according to officials and researchers who document disinformation.<\/p>\n

The effect on the outcome on Nov. 5 remains to be seen, but it has already debased what passes for political debate about the two major party candidates, Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It has also corroded the foundations of the country\u2019s democracy, undermining what was once a shared confidence that the country\u2019s elections, regardless of who won, have been free and fair.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Russia, as well as Iran and China, have gleefully stoked many of the narratives to portray American democracy as dysfunctional and untrustworthy. Politicians and influential media figures have in turn given foreign adversaries plenty of fodder to work with, inciting and amplifying divisiveness for partisan advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do have different tactics and different approaches to influence operations, but their goals are the same,\u201d Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in Washington, said in an interview, referring to foreign adversaries. \u201cVery simply, they\u2019re looking to undermine American trust in our democratic institutions and the election specifically, and to sow partisan discord.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A torrent of falsehoods, from home and abroad, have undermined what was once a shared faith in the honesty of America\u2019s democracy.The Democratic Party\u2019s vice-presidential nominee has been falsely accused of sexually molesting students. The claims have been spread by a former deputy sheriff from Florida, now openly working in Moscow for Russia\u2019s propaganda apparatus, on dozens of social media platforms and fake news outlets.A faked video purporting to show one victim \u2014 creating fake people is a recurring Russian tactic \u2014 received more than 5 million views on X, a platform owned by the world\u2019s richest man, Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has not only leaned all in for the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, but he also used his platform to reanimate discredited claims about the validity of the election\u2019s outcome.Smears, lies and dirty tricks \u2014 what we call disinformation today \u2014 have long been a feature of American presidential election campaigns. Two weeks before this year\u2019s vote, however, the torrent of half-truths, lies and fabrications, both foreign and homegrown, has exceeded anything that came before, according to officials and researchers who document disinformation.The effect on the outcome on Nov. 5 remains to be seen, but it has already debased what passes for political debate about the two major party candidates, Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It has also corroded the foundations of the country\u2019s democracy, undermining what was once a shared confidence that the country\u2019s elections, regardless of who won, have been free and fair.Russia, as well as Iran and China, have gleefully stoked many of the narratives to portray American democracy as dysfunctional and untrustworthy. Politicians and influential media figures have in turn given foreign adversaries plenty of fodder to work with, inciting and amplifying divisiveness for partisan advantage.\u201cThey do have different tactics and different approaches to influence operations, but their goals are the same,\u201d Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in Washington, said in an interview, referring to foreign adversaries. \u201cVery simply, they\u2019re looking to undermine American trust in our democratic institutions and the election specifically, and to sow partisan discord.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15205,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15206,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15203\/revisions\/15206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}