No social media is safe: How election misinformation spread on LinkedIn, Pinterest and Nextdoor
Pinterest, LinkedIn and other smaller social media sites have again been forced into the war against misinformation this election cycle, showing the challenges of policing the spread of lies online.On image bookmarking-site Pinterest, researchers found a search for the phrase “stolen ballots” uncovered posts promoting baseless claims about the vote-counting process. On LinkedIn, the business-focused social network, users shared articles and videos that pushed false claims about the election results. And on neighborhood-focused social media site Nextdoor, users reported false claims of voter fraud in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.Those social networks have long struggled with the misinformation runoff from bigger rivals, like Facebook and Twitter, who have worked to stifle the spread of election disinformation on their sites. Those tech giants have spent months preparing for this period, marshaling tens of thousands of content moderators to slap labels on posts, hide tweets and even shutting off political ads.The more misinformation circulates on the large social networks, the more it trickles down to the smaller sites better known for posting wedding photos, connecting with potential employers and complaining about a neighbor’s dog.“Of course, the Internet is a space without borders, and that means the conspiracy theories and propaganda and misinformation does not remain static across platforms,” said Samuel Woolley, a professor and director of a propaganda research team at the University of Texas at Austin.It’s not the first time. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Pinterest became a repository for thousands of political posts created by Russian operatives. Pinterest was one of the first social media companies to decisively crack down on anti-vaccine disinformation in 2019, and it expanded policies to prohibit voting misinformation this year. LinkedIn last year started releasing reports of its content moderation practices, where it detailed that it was removing fake accounts, spam job postings, harassment and…
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