Trend Lines

This year’s election season in the U.S. has been unusual in many ways, unfolding against the backdrop of a raging global pandemic, a historic economic recession and an incumbent president who is willing to discard America’s democratic norms. But there is one thing that has become predictable about recent U.S. elections, and sadly, other polls around the world: the torrent of misinformation that inevitably seems to accompany them. At the same time, the modalities of how misinformation spreads aren’t necessarily consistent across elections. According to Shelby Grossman, a political scientist and research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory, foreign influence operations are becoming more sophisticated, and the unintentional spread of misinformation can be just as pernicious. She joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to break down the latest trends in online misinformation and some of the things voters should watch out for on Election Day and thereafter. Relevant Articles on WP