Prism Metanews

A chat with Media Matters reporter Alex Kaplan, who has been tracking politicians that endorse QAnon, and @QOrigins, who as you might guess takes a strong interest, to take stock of how misinformationism fared in the 2022 midterms. Turns out it was a great night for normies, not so much for the conspiracy theory enthusiasts running for office. Good discussion of QAnon influencer Juan O. Savin and his coalition of candidates for secretaries of state and other offices. Bottom line: almost all of these candidates lost, and many of them lost big. We're hopeful that this will mean the misinformation strain of politics will be weaker going into 2024--but who knows how Donald Trump's candidacy will swing the pendulum back? Follow Prism Metanews on Substack, Twitter, or Facebook!

We talked a bit about the January 6th Committee hearings and what was covered there, especially as relates to misinformation. The conversation then turned to the ecosystem of fraudsters and charlatans who make a living off of people who believe in conspiracy theories. Our word for these predators is "grifters." Featuring good folks Paola (@PootDibou), Cosmos (@CPT_Cosmosis), VICE reporter David Gilbert (@daitaigilbert), Teddy Wilson (@reportbywilson) of Radical Reports, Rosalie (@NovelSci) of Hoaxlines, @Garrett_Archer a.k.a. The Data Guru with ABC 15 in Phoenix, and fan favorites @get_innocuous, @PokerPolitics, and @QOrigins. Follow Prism Metanews on Substack, Twitter, or Facebook!

An impromptu Meetup in which Prism and friends talk what kinds of jobs the anti-misinformation community needs to do now and in the future--and the corresponding "infrastructure" that will enable us to do the work. Follow Prism Metanews on Substack, Twitter, or Facebook!

In which we talk about the language of communities such as QAnon and crypto (originally titled "Normies and Anons: The Linguistic Divide") with Dan Olson (@FoldableHuman), Professor Laura Dilley (@laura_greenaura), Sara Aniano (@coolfacejane), and QAnon experts @dappergander, @QOrigins, and @PokerPolitics. Summary: First, why “shibboleths”? Well, language being the amazing technology it is, people of all kinds deploy language to accomplish all kinds of things. Language is cool. Within online communities, language is used to do things like asking for and granting a feeling of belonging, signifying status, and communicating with deep meaning, efficiently. So you see people in online and other communities get really into jargon and inside speak, which aids in accomplishing the above. Speaking like the group is a kind of code. We thought it would be interesting to focus on two online communities that display strong shibboleth tendencies. Massive Internet places where it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know the lingo: conspiracy theories and crypto. [Note: These communities are not one and the same! We in no way mean to suggest or imply that everyone who holds or promotes crypto also believes in conspiracy theories. Vice versa as well. Fans of crypto, NFTs, web3, please know that we aren’t hostile to your enthusiasm for a movement that is clearly resonating with a lot of people. We are skeptical, though, about the sustainability of the boom.] With this intro, let’s hit on some of the many great points made by the speakers. 1. A lot of language you see in QAnon originated in much older chanspeak 2. Catchphrases are as vital to their communications as individual words (“watch the water”) 3. “Think mirror” is used as a kind of catch-all to cope with the cognitive dissonance arising from real world events as they play out contra to what was predicted 4. “Disinformation is necessary,” same kind of thing, and can be used to calm down any anon who is fretting 5. Language is a way to communicate meaning, signal group identification, and influence thought 6. The underlying logic of crypto world’s language is not extremely different from that of conspiracyland’s, for example a lot of chanspeak-rooted words in the crypto vocabulary, including that coming more directly from Reddit 7. The rest of the language commonly used in crypto comes from the finance industry 8. Crypto was also a topic of frequent mention by the social media account networks that promoted QAnon 9. This, combined with the digital astroturfing/inauthentic boosting that accompanied and probably helped grow QAnon, could be seen as evidence of accelerationist disinfo [This goes on for 26 more points; see the full recap thread here.] Follow Prism Metanews on Substack, Twitter, or Facebook!

In this Misinfo Meetup, we discuss "Issues in Reporting On Misinformation" with VICE News reporter David Gilbert, author Mike Rothschild, and journalists Steven Monacelli and Eric Levai. Summary: Misinformation is a newer kind of “beat” for news organizations to devote coverage to. A lot has sprung up in this area the past five-ish years, from books published to freelancers, dedicated reporters, and whole teams at major outlets. It’s great, really. So we wanted to talk about issues in this reporting. More news orgs are assigning misinformation stories because it’s a problem that has grown to the point that ignoring it carries large risks. And to understand a lot of what happens these days, the misinformation lens is clutch. We talked with our professional reporter/author guests about why news orgs choose to put resources toward misinformation coverage, how stories are framed, and what it’s like to produce them. Touched on the potential for bad actor blowback when reporters do this kind of work. In the Q&A, we got into principles of science communications and the challenges of writing headlines. Accessibility as an essential aspect of misinformation journalism. What we can learn from episodes like the Japanese ivermectin/omicron study. And more. Unfortunately we’re all at a bit of a loss re: solutions beyond documenting the misinformation issue in professional reporting. There are no easy answers. As always, Prism came down on the side of rallying society around anti-misinformation “infrastructure,” by which we mean primarily building tools and collaborating more and raising and deploying war chests to counter those of the bad actors. All agreed we could do a lot better than we have with the support of just one wealthy benefactor. Until then, we just scraping by! In the end, the meetup was the friends we met along the way. tfw you share in the yarn-boarder-i-ness that we yarn-board watchers have in common. Went away feeling grateful for the anti-misinformation community and hopeful that we can figure this all out soon. Many thanks to our guests. Follow Prism Metanews on Substack, Twitter, or Facebook!