<
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/22/1130336625/why-false-claims-about-brazils-election-are-spreading-in-far-right-u-s-circles>
"Baseless claims that voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems and
Smartmatic are being used to rig voting in Brazil are circulating online and in
far-right media in the U.S. — even though neither company's hardware or
software is being used in the current election there.
It's the latest example of how debunked election fraud narratives are going
international. In many cases, the false claims about Brazil are being pushed in
English to American audiences by right-wing influencers and conservative media
sites who falsely assert that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential
election and appear to be planting the idea that similar fraud will occur in
the upcoming midterms.
The deceptive narratives feature two companies that were targeted by American
conspiracists, who falsely claimed their voting software was used to flip votes
from Trump to Joe Biden in 2020.
Dominion and Smartmatic have filed multiple lawsuits against Trump supporters
and right-wing media channels that advanced the falsehoods. But despite
repeated debunkings, the companies' names have become shorthand for election
fraud.
"It shows just how sticky these narratives are," said Lee Foster, senior vice
president for analysis at Alethea Group, which helps companies detect and
mitigate false and misleading claims.
"Once they gain traction in a particular place, like they did in the U.S.
presidential election in 2020, people will start applying those [narratives] to
other kinds of events and build out these broad conspiracy theories around
them," he said."
Via Tess.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
