00:00:23.080and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:28.600I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:00:32.200Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:00:39.740These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:00:43.580Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:51.200If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:00:56.920Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:01:05.580Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:01:15.600Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:20.980I am talking to a felon right now with face tattoos, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.
00:01:27.720That was a caller from my podcast, Therapy Gecko, where I speak with anonymous callers about their problems, relationships, and anything else in the depths of their mind.
00:01:38.160It all happens on my show, Therapy Gecko.
00:01:41.020So if you're trying to get out of your own head and into someone else's, this is the podcast for you.
00:01:45.820Listen to Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:56.320There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:02:04.440I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:02:10.000So this is going to be a little bit of a weird episode.
00:02:13.680Just right off the bat, I should say I have COVID.
00:02:17.600So if I don't sound like my normal self,
00:02:21.620it's probably because I've spent the last few days in bed with a fever.
00:02:48.900We were talking earlier off mic and I was not planning on making an episode today.
00:02:54.700I partly because I am not feeling well, but also just because like there has been so much going on, you know, with Elon Musk buying Twitter,
00:03:04.300which I have really come to see as our largest and perhaps most influential digital communication
00:03:12.700platform when it comes to getting real-time news. And so I guess I was just feeling a little bit
00:03:19.060strange. Here we are on the eve of election night, where you and I are recording this on Monday
00:03:23.620evening, and I wasn't planning on doing an episode. And, you know, we were talking about
00:03:28.140the election and sort of how we were thinking and where we were at. And I realized that I was
00:03:33.000actually feeling quite anxious and that I was feeling, I don't know, just a lot of feelings.
00:03:38.280And one of the ways that I process things is via podcasting, via having conversations with
00:03:43.720the listeners and helping myself sort out how I'm feeling. And we figured, why not bring it to the
00:03:49.340pod? So it's going to be a little bit of a different episode, but I did want to get on the
00:03:53.460mic on this election day eve. Yeah. And thank you for having me here. I am excited to process it
00:04:00.780with you. It's pretty understandable to imagine that you would feel a little anxious, unsure about
00:04:08.400what's going to happen because it's a pretty big election and also other things happening.
00:04:13.660Yeah, it's a pretty big election. And I think I had a moment of really thinking about what's at
00:04:19.180stake for so many of us, particularly marginalized people. And as someone who has a background in
00:04:25.420things like disinformation, digital communication, media, I thought it might be a good opportunity
00:04:32.720to really have a conversation about the kinds of myths and dis and malinformation that I am
00:04:39.920sure we are going to be seeing tomorrow. We've already seen a lot of it up until the elections
00:04:47.120and what we're going to see in the aftermath of the elections. And I thought that might be a
00:04:51.240helpful, just sort of level set for folks, and just generally talk through some of the ways that
00:04:56.160we know inaccurate, misleading content is going to be showing up in this election. And so before
00:05:02.820we start any of that, I do just want to level set on terms. I realize that I tend to throw around a
00:05:09.900lot of terms that people maybe don't know. Maybe people do know these terms, and this is like old
00:05:13.940news. But so three kinds of inaccurate or misleading information we're going to be talking
00:05:20.000you back today are misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Mike, I know that you know
00:05:26.520some of those terms from your work producing our series on disinformation called Disinformed about
00:05:31.980a year ago. Do you want me to give you the definitions of those terms just as we go forward
00:05:38.100in this episode? Yeah, well, I've been around for a little while while you've been producing
00:05:45.500these podcasts about these different types of inaccurate information and i feel like i've got
00:05:51.180a pretty good handle on misinformation being information that uh it's just not true but
00:05:57.560somebody really doesn't have any malicious intent for spreading it uh disinformation i've heard is0.96
00:06:04.100a damn lie that's you that's you okay so you've been either popping into trainings i've done0.93
00:06:11.900because that's that's my little line about how to tell the difference between dis and misinformation1.00
00:06:16.060misinformation is misleading information disinformation that's a damn lie somebody0.98
00:06:22.320is trying to intentionally fuck with you by lying yeah right so i've heard that a couple of times0.99
00:06:29.480from me from you uh makes sense nice and clear disinformation it's a damn lie got it malinformation1.00
00:06:37.380is kind of a new one for me oh my god i'm so glad you asked so malin for i guess you didn't really0.88
00:06:42.640ask but it was a question yeah it was a statement malinformation yes malinformation is really
00:06:49.340important it's one that we i guess for myself i do a lot of trainings on misinformation disinformation
00:06:54.780how folks can combat it all of that one that i've only recently started adding more into the
00:07:01.460conversation is malinformation malinformation is information that is technically correct
00:07:06.880but it's taken out of context by somebody that probably has an agenda, right? And so
00:07:12.480it's videos where the videos are not doctored. The person in the video said that thing,
00:07:19.840but that thing is then taken out of context to make some larger point that is probably misleading.
00:07:26.640And so you can really think of it as like misinformation is, if you're anything like me,
00:07:30.960when your mom sends you, you know, things she saw on Facebook about how if you get into your car0.86
00:07:37.860and somebody has put a dollar bill under your wiper, don't touch it because that's how sex
00:07:44.920traffickers get you. And it's a new way that sex traffickers are trying to get you by putting a
00:07:49.060dollar bill on your windshield. And it also probably has fentanyl on it. And if you touch
00:07:52.480that, you're definitely going to die. My mom, God lover, doesn't know if these things are true or
00:07:59.360not necessarily. It just comes on her Facebook page and she's sharing it just in case. She's
00:08:05.140not doing it out of malicious intent. She's doing it because, you know, let me just share this in
00:08:10.380case it's true, right? And so misinformation, somebody is not trying to, not necessarily
00:08:14.780trying to intentionally mislead you. Disinformation, a damn lie. They are trying to intentionally1.00
00:08:21.000lie to you knowingly to spread chaos or confusion or fear. And malinformation is technically
00:08:27.760accurate content that is taken out of context or misrepresented to make a larger point that
00:08:52.140I mean, that feels like a 50% increase in our understanding of these lies.
00:08:58.480Yeah, I mean, I really got to shout out Dr. Joan Donovan, friend of the show.
00:09:02.340She uses the term media manipulation, which I think is a good one because, I don't know,
00:09:07.160I feel like disinformation has almost kind of become like a buzzword a little bit where
00:09:12.420people are just, the definition of it has become so watered down that it's become a
00:09:20.240bit of a cliche. And so she likes to use the term media manipulation, which also counts for things
00:09:25.940that you see on Twitter to sort of get back to the roots of the fact that we're talking about
00:09:30.120a citizenry being manipulated via what they see on digital media. And so whether you're talking
00:09:34.660about misinformation, malinformation, disinformation, that is really at the heart of what we're talking
00:09:38.600about. And so I really wanted to get into some of the things to look out for as we go into our
00:09:44.240election day today. And one, I guess the first bucket is just sort of general, I guess I'm
00:09:51.120calling it sort of the general isms, racism, sexism, you know, homophobia, misogyny, essentially
00:10:01.420the idea that because of someone's identity, that is going to impact what kind of leader they can
00:10:08.720be. That's something that we have seen so much of in this election, I'm sorry to say. And
00:10:14.080It can be kind of difficult to see. Some of it is very blatant, but some of it is a little bit more difficult to see. But some things to look out for that we've already seen in the midterms and we're definitely going to be seeing today on Election Day.
00:10:27.100One, things like baselessly connecting Black candidates to crime or lawlessness.
00:10:35.140I saw a pretty, I guess I'll say horrific example of this in the North Carolina, a hotly contested race in North Carolina with Ted Budd up against Sherry Beasley.0.94
00:10:46.760And in an ad that Ted Budd put out, they basically all but call her a pedophile.0.95
00:10:53.360Because Sherry Beasley struck down a bipartisan law requiring GPS tracking for child predators.1.00
00:11:17.780Okay, so essentially this ad kind of blames Beasley for a decision from her time on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
00:11:25.120And they blame this decision on the horrific attack by a three-time convicted sex offender named Tori Grady.
00:11:34.460And so what actually is going on is that back in 2019, Beasley joined a four-to-two majority that struck down a law requiring automatic lifetime monitoring for anyone convicted at least twice for the same offense.
00:11:47.380That decision concluded that such tracking violated the Fourth Amendment and emphasized that most states do not have any sort of lifetime tracking or monitoring.
00:11:57.660And so essentially, you know, this is from the Carolina Journal.
00:12:00.940The case was not whether or not Grady had committed the crime.
00:12:03.880It was not whether or not he deserved forgiveness.
00:12:05.600The case was about whether anyone who served his time and was no longer even on parole or probation could have their every move tracked and monitored and recorded for the rest of their life, right?
00:12:19.200And so, essentially, Beasley joined a majority on this decision that, no, it is not constitutional that somebody who is not on parole, not on probation, is not in the system in any way at this point, should have their behavior monitored for the rest of their life.
00:12:35.700And the ad really misleadingly claims that GPS tracking was instituted under a bipartisan law, quote, until Cherry Beasley struck it down, and that Beasley ruled that it violated the child predator's privacy.
00:15:25.600But the way that they're able to create, I would argue, a really unfair playing field0.51
00:15:34.180for women of color, people who are marginalized that they can't possibly live up to.
00:15:38.900So this is like a very common tactic of people who are interested in kind of doing these coded attacks on marginalized people who are running for public office.
00:15:49.300You mentioned that, you know, this is particularly particularly weaponized against the marginalized people.
00:15:54.860Do you have other examples beyond Sherry Beasley?
00:15:57.820Yeah, I mean, I think in the way that we've seen certain buzzwords be flung around to specifically Black candidates, Black women in particular, you know, buzzwords that are at this point essentially just dog whistles.
00:16:11.240Biden, Warnock and Abrams are woke communist leftists who hate this country.
00:16:17.440OK, so something that sticks out at me about this is the use of the word, the words communist and woke.
00:16:25.440As far as I know, I don't believe that Warnock, Stacey Abrams, or Joe Biden have officially endorsed communism, like a very specific thing.
00:16:37.960And I also think it's interesting how they say like, oh, woke gun laws.
00:16:44.960Like at this point, when someone says, oh, their woke agenda, basically what they're meaning is that like that person is black.
00:16:52.460They don't give you any specific, you know, thing that they think is woke. It's just the woke agenda. And so I've definitely seen an uptick in this when it comes to black candidates where just like, oh, if you want woke policies, that's what they give you.
00:17:09.960Yeah, it was an interesting ad because I feel like the actual descriptions of the policies that Biden and Warnock and I guess Stacey Abrams, it's not really clear who the ad was against, but like the policies they were describing actually sounded pretty good, like banning AR-15s.0.98
00:17:31.200That kind of sounds like a good idea to me.
00:17:33.480And there was one about like red flag laws.
00:17:36.720Like, yeah, maybe some people, maybe there should be occasions where red flags disqualify
00:17:41.160someone from gun ownership in an intensely concentrated, dense society.
00:17:48.540Mike, it sounds like you're endorsing what we know are bogus mental health exams.
00:17:55.880It's like the actual policies were totally reasonable sounding.
00:18:00.240And it was only like they're woke. They're totally bogus. They're communist. They're far radical left. It's like they had to just layer on these descriptors because the actual policies themselves, I believe, are actually popular among most of the American people.
00:18:21.900I guess I can't speak to the Georgia electorate, but I suspect most Georgians would be in favor of some sort of reasonable gun restrictions.
00:18:33.640I don't know. Most people in most parts of the country are. I don't know Georgia in particular.
00:18:37.760I mean, anything sounds unreasonable if you say it like this.
00:28:02.100Another topic that I know that we're going to be seeing a lot of disinformation and misinformation and malinformation around is abortion.
00:28:09.100We have already seen incumbents who are up for the election really backtracking on their records on abortion.
00:28:17.300I can absolutely understand why they are very invested in misrepresenting where they actually stood when it comes to Roe and protecting abortion rights, because it's incredibly, their stances are incredibly unpopular, right?
00:28:33.780So, like, we've seen folks who are running for reelection talk about how, like, oh, well, you know, it really just sent the issue back to the states, things like that, trying to paint people who are interested and invested in protecting abortion rights, trying to paint us as the extremists.
00:28:53.360We've seen candidates who are supportive of abortion access being accused of, quote, partial birth abortions or, quote, late term abortions, which I always say this.
00:29:04.880Those are not real terms. They are not medical terms.
00:29:07.440They are terms that are completely made up by anti-abortion extremists.
00:29:12.560So in Oregon, Oregon Right to Life sent mailers making claims about what they call, quote, late term abortions in Oregon.
00:29:19.880Their flyer that they sent out attacked Democratic candidate for the Senate, Mark Meek, who has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood.
00:29:25.560The flyer has a picture of a baby, and it says babies have to watch their backs.
00:29:30.380Radical Mark Meek wants to allow late-term abortions right up until the moment of birth at taxpayer expense.
00:29:46.700I feel like Pete Buttigieg nailed this when he went on TV a while ago and he he pointed out that, like, when you talk about somebody who's having an abortion at that period, it's because they intended to carry it to term and something terrible has happened.
00:30:06.840Nobody is choosing to terminate their pregnancy at a late state like that.
00:30:14.320Yeah, you are 1000% correct. And the fact that this mailer frames it as if Mark Meek endorses that, he's like, oh, I think that, you know, you should be able to, yeah, it's just not happening. And I understand what they're doing. It makes someone who maybe doesn't know much about, like, if you're like a low information voter on the issue, you might not have thought about the fact that like, somebody having to terminate a pregnancy
00:31:08.580what the circumstances would actually be
00:31:11.640for someone who would need to terminate a pregnancy right up to the moment of birth.
00:31:16.220And that they're banking on them thinking, oh, that person is, you know, they're banking
00:31:22.520on them having an intensely negative reaction.
00:31:25.520And it just makes me sad because like, where is the empathy?
00:31:28.700Where is the empathy for someone who would actually be in that situation?
00:31:32.300When it comes to abortion disinformation ahead of the midterms and in the midterms, the thing
00:31:36.360that gets me is that we've allowed both candidates, elected officials, and in some cases our media,
00:31:43.360not, you know, fringe media, I mean, like mainstream media outlets to frame abortion
00:31:49.740as this divisive issue where, you know, oh, we have to do both sides because, you know, people
00:31:56.160disagree when the reality is that 80% of Americans are supportive of abortion access. There is not
00:32:03.220a pocket of America anywhere where the majority of people are anti-abortion, even in deep red
00:32:09.160states. It is not a divisive issue. And the people who are against protecting abortion access,
00:32:17.720they are the extremists. They are the ones who are widely out of step with the will of the
00:32:22.720majority of the people. And so that's why you see elected officials having to really lie about
00:32:28.600their stances on this because they know that those stances are wildly unpopular.
00:32:33.500They know that most people do not agree with those stances and that the only way that they
00:32:36.860can even talk about them in a way that would not have them run out of office is to lie and to
00:32:43.740misrepresent them. And so I can understand why we see these folks backtracking on their records
00:32:48.760saying like, oh, we're just leaving after the states. Because if they were to say the truth,
00:32:52.180which is that we're attacking abortion access, they know that that's not what people want.
00:32:56.340That is not what Americans want. It is not a divisive issue. Whoever decided to frame it that way really pulled a snow job on all of us because it's just not it's just not true.
00:33:05.260Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think the math changed underneath them in a really big way where it's their position has always been unpopular, right? Like most Americans, I believe, since the beginning of America until now have been supportive of abortion rights and access to abortion.
00:33:26.280And most people support it. And so, like, people who starting in the 70s decided that it was going to be a winning wedge issue for them, they've always had that difficult challenge of trying to sell an unpopular opinion.
00:33:42.540And it worked for them because it was intensely motivating to the subset of the population who like really intensely cared. And the majority of the voting populace did not have the same intense feelings.
00:34:01.540And now following the Dobbs decision, they suddenly realize that they can't just continue to speak to this small group in these impassioned, over-the-top ways to rile them up because they realize that a much wider segment of the population is now listening.
00:34:22.940And that wider segment of the population wants abortion access. That's something that it's just always been a given in society for like thousands of years.
00:34:38.220and it's just this recent cadre of right-wing assholes who realized that they could like win0.97
00:34:46.160some elections uh by pretending like it's some radical position which it obviously isn't0.99
00:34:53.700yeah people need to have abortions it's just the it's just yeah we live in a society people
00:35:00.220need to have abortions i'm sorry that people don't like it but like that's what it is people
00:35:04.520need to have abortions. People are gonna have abortions. People been having abortions. Just0.78
00:35:09.720let people sort out their own shit. More after a quick break.1.00
00:35:34.520So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.
00:35:37.800Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.
00:35:42.020Think podcasting can help your business?
00:36:27.640It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
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00:36:44.720Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:01.720So let's talk more about some of that myths and disinformation I know we're going to be seeing today on Election Day about voting more generally.
00:39:09.100One is just sort of spreading fear, particularly fear to black and brown folks and marginalized voters.
00:39:17.640You know, every election year we see, you know, oh, people are being arrested at the polls.
00:39:24.420Oh, a picture that purports to show ICE agents doing arrests of undocumented folks at the polls.
00:39:31.000Oh, I always see the little thing that's like, oh, they're checking for outstanding warrants or unpaid child support payments at the polls. Clearly, these are tactics meant to scare black and brown voters.0.96
00:39:47.140And they're so savvy because they're clearly tactics that play into the very rightful fear and baggage and trauma that black and brown folks have around being criminalized in the United States.0.98
00:40:01.680And so what's so fucked up is that oftentimes with disinformation and misinformation, it is the reason why it works is because there's a grain of truth to it. There is one aspect to it that is accurate. And that one aspect is sort of blown out of proportion or like misrepresented.0.95
00:40:21.340And so it makes me so sad because in reality, we know there are states where Black and brown voters are being criminalized, right? In Florida, folks with felonies on their records who were told that, who thought that they could vote, went to register to vote, and then the police showed up at their door for voter fraud, right?
00:40:42.820And so we know that that happened, and we know that that is clearly meant to create a climate where folks who might have felonies on their records, folks who have served their time, paid their debt to society, are unclear on what's happening and are maybe just afraid.
00:41:02.140And so I have to give it to DeSantis that it is such a savvy move to put fear in the hearts of people who are just trying to exercise their civic duty of voting.
00:41:11.540And, I mean, if you were someone who had a felony on your record and you weren't sure whether or not you could vote, you've seen these viral videos of folks, Black and brown folks, who thought they could vote, were told they could vote, were given the paperwork to vote, and then were arrested.
00:41:30.080I could understand why that would keep you from voting. I could understand why that would keep you from the polls. And it's sad to me that when I talk about sort of the lies around Black voters being criminalized, that folks like DeSantis have gone out of their way to make sure that that continues to be based in reality, to make sure that that continues to have that bit of truth.0.56
00:41:53.660And we really deserve so much better than leaders who are going to exploit our traumas and baggage and anxieties as marginalized people living in this country that are so real for us.
00:42:12.140yeah it's so disgusting and and sad to see people's right to vote attacked and like you
00:42:26.080said there's like a germ of truth in all successful disinformation campaigns and0.99
00:42:35.440there's more than a germ of truth in the idea that like black and brown people have not had0.99
00:42:40.820the easiest time voting in the united states right like there's definitely like the right to vote0.58
00:42:47.260was just categorically denied to black people for the first hundred so years of the united states
00:42:54.680and ever since then it's been a fight it's a constant fight it's a fight in this election
00:43:00.760in 2022 and it's just so dispiriting uh to me and i can only imagine it's even more dispiriting
00:43:10.540to others but it's like this is the core part of what it means to be like a participating citizen
00:43:15.920in uh republic is like you get to vote you get to have a say in who leads the the county highway
00:43:27.220department or like the state dot or like whatever or like the governorship or the presidency or like
00:43:32.920passes the laws in congress you get to have a say all the citizens get to have a vote and to attack
00:43:39.320that and undermine it is so antithetical to the the whole enterprise and i guess it's like not
00:43:48.700surprising because they're so disingenuous and so hypocritical but it and it's almost like it feels0.77
00:43:58.300expected at this point like oh well of course republicans are going to try to suppress the vote0.98
00:44:05.360of like black and brown people and young people like that's just like what they do but like it's
00:44:11.320it really like cuts to the core of american democracy being at risk well that's i0.96
00:44:22.260that's one of the reasons why i even wanted to have do this episode tonight because
00:44:29.100I think I was just coming to terms with the weight of that feeling of that it feels I don't
00:44:39.900and maybe this is going to sound Pollyanna-ish only in the last few years have I come to realize
00:44:48.200how tenuous and fragile democracy is and you know seeing these these polls about how little
00:44:56.800and who knows about polls, but I saw a couple of polls that were like, people are interested
00:45:01.640in economic issues and they're not interested in like protecting our democracy. And speaking just
00:45:08.320for myself, I don't know how anybody doesn't see those two things as linked. I don't know how
00:45:12.880anybody doesn't see like just the ability to be a person who is free to try to make a better life
00:45:22.540for themselves, free to try to start a family on their terms when they say how they say,
00:45:29.900free to raise that family safely in a safe community with access to, you know, accessible
00:45:36.660healthcare and food. Like, I don't see how, like, to me, those things are, the Venn diagram is a
00:45:42.740circle that democracy in living in a democratic state also means, is also connected to being able0.87
00:45:52.060to be free to exercise your democratic will and fucking raise your family without, without fear0.95
00:46:01.240of, yeah, just being able to raise your family. I see those things. I mean, like, I feel like I'm0.98
00:46:08.380like spitting out talking about it, but reading polls that are like, oh, people don't care about
00:46:12.320abortion. They care about putting food on the table and economic issues. People don't care
00:46:15.820about democracy. They care about putting gas in their car. I see those things as all the same to
00:46:20.600If I don't embody autonomy and people don't see that as part and parcel to economic freedom, what are we doing? If I'm not able to go vote free of lies and legit violence, political violence, what are we doing?
00:46:40.180And so I see that like all these ways that the fabric of what it means to live in a healthy, functioning democracy is being so pulled apart. And I see all the little threads and it scares me. I'm scared. I mean, I usually try to be like optimistic and hopeful on the show. And generally I am, but I am scared.
00:47:01.980And I hate that. I mean, I'm you know me, I'm not someone who is like very interested in electoral politics as the end all be all. But how the fuck did we get here where the only path to liberation is like, at this point, all we can do is fucking vote.
00:47:24.900like if it's voting for the lesser of two evils do what you gotta do i want so much better for us0.99
00:47:31.960but it's it's do you know what i'm saying like it feels scary it feels like we are
00:47:36.520it feels like something has been pulled apart and we're trying to scotch tape it back together
00:47:41.740it is scary times i wish i had some nice words to make it less scary uh yeah it's tenuous
00:47:49.860it's weird make it all better mike you know and on the eve of this election you know i just like
00:48:00.860there's a winston churchill quote that i think about all the time about how democracy is the
00:48:08.160absolute worst form of government except for all the others and it's actually pretty good it's0.99
00:48:15.080pretty good and i think it's accurate like it it's so stupid we're stuck in this union1.00
00:48:23.080with all these imbeciles who hate the idea of unionism and yet here we are it's difficult0.99
00:48:31.520i don't know that there's an answer i think we're all just like trying to get through it0.99
00:48:35.840as best we can people listening are like why did i tune into this now i'm bummed out
00:48:43.080hey you asked me to be on this episode you knew the risks i know i know i know if i want to bum
00:48:50.660everybody out just bring michael amato on the podcast all i see are risks no it'll be fine
00:48:58.320everything's gonna be fine well let's i do want to talk about so it's election day i do want to
00:49:05.700just sort of talk about what we are likely to see on election day and beyond that's why people tuned
00:49:10.620into this episode. Let's get to that. I know. Y'all, I have COVID. I'm sorry.
00:55:37.360that is the kind of time where bad actors can really run wild.
00:55:41.200You're going to see a lot of claims about voter fraud or election fraud. And I just need to be like super clear. There is no widespread voter fraud in the United States. End of sentence. There might be voting irregularities. Sure, perhaps. Those are never to the scale to actually impact an election. It just does not happen.
00:56:05.780And so I hate, as much as I hate Trump and his presidency, something that I cannot believe that he actually got into the lexicon that stuck was this idea of like, oh, count every legal vote.
00:56:22.360I remember when Ivanka Trump tweeted that, like, this shouldn't be controversial. Count every legal vote. It's so insidious how it makes it seem as though there are lots of, so if you're saying count every legal vote, yeah, it sounds totally reasonable when you first say it or when you first hear it, but you're making it seem like there are lots of illegal votes.
00:56:46.000And that's not true. So it's already kind of grounded in a situation that is not happening. And so I know that we're going to see, we've already seen so many claims about like, oh, it doesn't take a long time to count votes. Like there is something funny is going around.
00:57:33.580so many claims about voter fraud uh people like making cases to various courts it's just
00:57:45.640these people have had the past two years to just be like stroking their hard-ons and thinking about
00:57:53.640how they're going to like yell voter fraud this time around and so they're going to be out there
00:57:59.560they're going to be doing it yeah they're going to be doing it everywhere that they possibly can0.53
00:58:04.900they're probably going to burn arizona to the ground and will immediately burn because they
00:58:09.980have no water anymore uh it's going to be everywhere though it's going to be everywhere
00:58:17.500and that's kind of my point of making this episode is that you were talking about burning arizona to0.99
00:58:23.940the ground and i know you're kidding but well to be clear i i suggested that they were the arizonans
00:58:30.460were going to burn it to the ground i was not suggesting that anyone else go there and burn0.62
00:58:33.860it to the ground it was a lament not a threat oh i shouldn't go to arizona and burn a town you
00:58:39.660should not no there are no threats i'm not making any threats to arizona let me cancel my flight
00:58:45.220here no i'm kidding i'm just concerned for their well-being based on some of the people inside the0.94
00:58:50.240Well, so, you know, we're kidding, but we are in this very weird time where shit is just weird.
00:59:00.240You know, election officials have been warning for the last few days of election-related violence on Election Day and after, which is scary and makes me so sad that that's just where we're at.0.93
00:59:14.740conspiracy theories about stolen elections and voter fraud have translated to extremist groups
00:59:20.580getting trained to become, quote, poll watchers, which basically means they just harass and
00:59:25.960intimidate voters and poll workers at the polls. Elon Musk owns Twitter. They've got a new
00:59:32.320pay $8 to get verified verification process rolling out. Stuff is just weird. And so I think
00:59:41.240in this moment where things feel weird tenuous scary like uh all the things the question is like
00:59:52.540what can we do and i would say this i mean this is the spiel i always give but one whatever you do
01:00:02.000don't share or amplify misinformation even if you're trying to like debunk it make a joke of
01:00:09.080it, point out, like, look at this incorrect information. If you're on a platform where
01:00:13.580you can report it, report it. But nine times out of 10, if you engage with incorrect information,
01:00:18.540you're just going to help it spread. That's true for pretty much anything. And so if you
01:00:22.240see something that is extremist or like a really bad tweet, don't engage with it. Don't
01:00:28.300share things just in case. We had an interesting situation during early vote where somebody
01:00:34.000shared that like oh i heard from a friend that if your ballot has writing on it then like a
01:00:41.260signature on it that it's going to be voided and the election like the county election official
01:00:46.960had to post on facebook saying actually we are legally required to sign each ballot and so like
01:00:52.900if we sign it that's like that's actually required of us and so don't share things even if you're
01:00:59.340sharing them just in case if you cannot verify that they're correct. And instead, focus on
01:01:05.060sharing positive, accurate content about the election, the candidates, the issues and the
01:01:13.660causes that are motivating you to vote. It is going to be so much better if you focus your
01:01:19.680time on spreading that kind of information that is accurate and timely and positive and helpful
01:01:24.480rather than engaging with information that is not true.