The former president’s election conspiracies wound up on mainstream social media after getting started on niche conservative sites.
One of the most powerful voices spreading election-fraud conspiracy theories online on Tuesday was a user who’s been banned from both Facebook and Twitter for nearly two years: Former President Donald Trump.
Trump spent Election Day posting unfounded allegations on his own Truth Social social media network, as well as on his channel on the encrypted messenger Telegram. Those platforms are far smaller than Facebook and Twitter, and state officials quickly debunked the claims.
But his accusations boomeranged onto more mainstream platforms as MAGA candidates, high-profile influencers and voters shared his allegations far and wide.
It represents a marked shift in the social media landscape that was once solely dominated by the likes of Facebook and Twitter — and offers a hint of how hard it will be for even powerful platforms to contain false or misleading statements by the former president if, or when, he launches his campaign for the 2024 presidential election.
Over the last two years, as major social media platforms have begun policing content more carefully, a cottage industry of smaller platforms, such as Gab, Gettr and Parler, have sprouted up to cater to a primarily far-right audience eager for fewer restrictions on what they can say online.
These conservative alt-platforms — where conspiracy theories like QAnon blend seamlessly with skepticism toward Covid-19 vaccines — have become a launching pad for online falsehoods, which can garner a widespread audience on the fringes of the internet before leapfrogging onto mainstream platforms.
“One of the biggest trends of the day has been the role of Donald Trump,” said Claire Wardle, co-director of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University, whose team is tracking midterm-related online falsehoods.
“He is a critical figure in terms of pushing narratives that undermine election integrity,” she added. “What it shows is that while the major platforms were able to remove him, they could not stop his supporters re-sharing content on Twitter and Facebook that Trump is posting on fringe platforms like Truth Social or Telegram.”
The ability of Trump to reach a mainstream audience with unfounded claims — all of which were uncorrected on these fringe sites — also highlights how, despite being banned from Facebook and Twitter, Trump remains the central figure in how election-related conspiracy theories can garner widespread attention.
On Election Day, his debunked claims of voter fraud were picked up by MAGA-supporting candidates, far-right influencers and run-of-the-mill social media users, based on POLITICO’s review of this social media activity.
On mainstream platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, they posted screenshots of Trump’s unproven claims and shared links to the former president’s accounts on fringe social networks.
None of Trump’s comments reviewed by POLITICO that were shared more broadly on Facebook and Twitter ran with fact-checking labels or were identified as spreading election-related misinformation. Both companies have strict policies that election-denying content has no place on their platforms, and the platforms have invested heavily in clamping down on such online falsehoods, including working with outside fact-checking organizations.
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Donald Trump spent Election Day posting unfounded allegations on Truth Social & Telegram. State officials quickly debunked them.
But MAGA candidates, influencers and voters spread his claims far and wide on more mainstream platforms.https://t.co/cuA8qkKDaX
— POLITICO (@politico) November 9, 2022
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