Misinformation is what divides America now

Election Day in America is finally upon us, after what feels like a decades-long, coast-to-coast campaign slog. Will anger over the fall of [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( Election Day in America is finally upon us, after what feels like a decades-long, coast-to-coast campaign slog. Will anger over the fall of Roe v. Wade help keep Congress in Democratic hands? Or will Tuesday [bring a red wave]( brought on by worries about inflation and the economy? This year’s midterm elections come less than two weeks after [Elon Musk closed on his $44 billion purchase of Twitter](. If I were into [conspiracy theories](, I’d be suspicious, but I certainly wouldn’t be the only one after what we’ve been through the past few years. It’s almost hard to get too upset with people who join the tinfoil-hat brigade, what with the plethora of misinformation being pumped into our media diets on the regular. Apparently a lot of people are eating it up. Bloomberg News’s Davey Alba, Jack Gillum and Leonardo Nicoletti took a deep dive into the data, and they found that [using social media to spread false claims about the “stolen election” gave Republican candidates far more interactions on their posts](. That engagement has only gained momentum since 2020. At first, it was a national phenomenon, but as Frank Wilkinson found in Pennsylvania, [the “big lie” that the election was stolen from Donald Trump]( and the ramped-up pressure its believers are now applying to local election officials has put small-town governments under siege in 2022. And those election deniers, as Matthew Winkler writes, “are easy prey for mischievous economic messaging,” [skewing consumer sentiment in the wrong direction]( despite signs that the economy has actually been doing pretty well under President Joe Biden: Adding fuel to the fire is Musk, who laid off half of Twitter’s workforce on Friday. What does that have to do with the election, you ask? When the people who have the power to sift through the firehose (for lack of a better metaphor) of misinformation being tweeted are no longer employed, [the firehose becomes an unstoppable stream of fake videos](, false allegations and baseless theories that are then retweeted and shared in an endless loop. “Musk is running Twitter about [as deftly as Donald Trump ran the country](,” Mark Gongloff writes. [Let that sink in](: The man who calls himself a “free-speech absolutist” and once said “[free speech is the bedrock]( of a functioning democracy” has already shown himself to be a purveyor of conspiracy theories: He [tweeted, then deleted](, a link from a fringe source spreading an anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory regarding the attack on Paul Pelosi. Hopefully, says Parmy Olson, the 2022 midterms should be saved from the worst of it: “[Misinformation about the election is less prevalent on [Twitter and Facebook]]( than more general forms of misinformation involving, say, vaccines or flat-Earth theories.” Still, it’s hard to tell if Musk has “a genuine — if sometimes extreme — commitment to civil liberties, or if it’s just [Musk’s way of justifying outrageous comments](,” Robert A. George writes. Musk could end up being his own worst enemy if Twitter advertisers continue abandoning the platform to avoid being associated with illegitimate content (or, you know, charging $8 for the “privilege” of a [blue check mark](, as Tim Culpan writes). When all seems bleak for the Democrats, Joshua Green writes, if Musk welcomes the man [who provoked a movement back to Twitter](, it might just work out … in time for 2024. More Election Reading: - [Five Reasons Abortion May Not Deliver for Democrats](: Ramesh Ponnuru - [Midterms Move Climate Battle Beyond Washington](: Liam Denning - [Democrats Should Do More to Help Tim Ryan in Ohio](: Julianna Goldman Notes: To contact the author of this newsletter, email Brooke Sample at bsample1@bloomberg.net. This is the Theme of the Week edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a digest of our top commentary published every Sunday. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( | [Ad Choices]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022