The US presidential election campaign has been fueled by false and misleading claims appearing on social media targeting both presidential candidates. The main narratives against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris were that she worked as a prostitute or that she hit a little girl with a car. Republican candidate Donald Trump has been hit with claims such as sitting on an incontinence pad during a talk show.

However, the volume of disinformation against Harris far exceeds that against Trump, experts said long before the election.

With the rise of disinformation, false information was spread by US players as well as foreign actors trying to interfere in the election.

What role did non-US actors play?

US officials have warned that foreign adversaries are “conducting additional influence operations designed to undermine public confidence in the integrity of US elections and fuel divisions among Americans.”

“Russia is the most active threat,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said. a joint statement on November 4, the day before the election.

Influencers particularly linked to Russia produced videos and created fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters about the electoral process and suggest that Americans use violence against each other because of political preferences, the statement said.

“Russia sought to sow chaos in the election, as predicted, and there is a sense that it accelerated efforts near the end of the election cycle. We won’t know how successful it was until more forensic research is done,” John P. Wihbey, associate professor at Northeastern University and founder of Northeastern’s Internet Democracy Initiative DW said.

“China has shown its interest in rigging the election,” he said, adding that the role of TikTok and its algorithm remains a topic of great concern and debate.

A lesson learned for the authorities from the last US election was to quickly publicize these attempts, said Katja Munoz, a researcher at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “The strategy behind it is to build trust: whether it’s an attempt by foreign or domestic actors or in general,” she said.

The big players of disinformation

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, which is now owned by billionaire Elon Musk, and Telegram have seen a lot of misinformation spread on their platforms, according to Wihbey. “Because of its size, YouTube is likely to have seen a considerable amount of effort to spread false information. And there are a lot of accounts out there that are right on the line between misinformation and just highly partisan information,” he said.

Musk’s false or misleading claims about the US election have been viewed 2 billion times, researchers at The Center to Combat Digital Hate (CCDH) found in a report released just before the elections. One of the most viewed fake tweets insinuated that Democrats were importing illegal voters —this post alone it has been viewed over 47 million times.

Musk’s political posts on X have received more than 17 billion views since endorsing Trump in July — more than twice as many views as all political campaign ads on X combined, CCDH said.

“Musk has clearly altered the algorithm to favor his pro-Trump campaign messages,” said Wihbey, who added that this is something entirely new in electoral politics and social media.

“X has served as a real gateway between the fringe and the mainstream, much more than it has in past election cycles when it had different ownership,” Wihbey told DW.

Did artificial intelligence play a role?

While there have been a few instances of AI-generated fakes, such as the audio of President Joe Biden asking New Hampshire primary voters not to go to the polls, a deepfake of superstar Taylor Swift endorsing Trump, or Vice President Kamala Harris wearing a communist outfit, “we haven’t seen the kind of wave of AI-powered deepfakes that many feared would affect the election,” Wihbey said.

“But did that convince people not to vote for Kamala Harris? I don’t think it’s that easy,” Munoz said. Patriarchal structures could have played a role, or that people’s biggest fear was the economy tanking and they thought Trump was more competent — even though they might not like him or find his comments offensive, she added.

“Harris didn’t have much time to define his personality, brand and platform — the narratives around it — so it was easier to make false claims about her,” Wihbey said.

Researchers have also discovered networks of AI-powered bots driving support for Trump shortly before the election.

Does misinformation have the power to sway the vote?

While there was a lot of misinformation across all channels, it’s not clear if it changed the way people voted. “It probably served to reinforce existing narratives and create solidarity and energy for the conservative right,” Wihbey said.

This point of view is echoed by Curd Knüpfer, assistant professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute at FU Berlin. He says the misinformation didn’t tip the balance. However, neither did the facts.

“Overall, it was a relatively honest election campaign. Not necessarily in the sense that certain statements were true — they were a bunch of lies. But Trump has articulated quite openly what he wants and what he stands for,” he said.

However, the purpose of disinformation is not just to convince people of certain narratives — that might not work that often, Munoz said. The long-term goal was to weaken trust in the media and democracy. “And that almost always happens if you see that much trash — even if I don’t believe it, I am convinced that there is only garbage online — so mission accomplished. So there are a lot of people who have moved away from mainstream media,” she said. “Influencers, podcasters, pundits then fill that hole.”

Trump himself created his own own social media platform Truth Social in early 2022, after what was then Twitter was launched following the previous year’s January 6 attack on the Capitol. Musk reinstated Trump’s account in November 2022.

“Conservative groups and individuals have generally shown a greater vulnerability to engaging in and spreading disinformation,” Wihbey said, adding that more research would be needed to find out if that was the case this election cycle. Conspiracy theories surrounding the attempted assassination of Trump in the summer were generated and shared by both sides, he said.

And the disinformation and disinformation will continue. US officials have said they expect foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, to continue promoting disinformation in the coming weeks, long after the election is over.

Carla Reveland contributed to this report.
Edited by: Silja Thoms

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