About Misinformation Watch: Each edition, we use our AI-based technology MIDAC to monitor and analyze misinformation on a different topic around the world.

BACKGROUND

“Stop the Steal” has emerged as a rallying cry for large numbers of users who claim President Biden’s victory in the 2020 US elections was fraudulent. Four months after the election, erroneous claims and misleading statements related to “Stop the Steal” are still widespread on social media. Mythos Labs used MIDAC, our AI-based technology, to monitor and analyze misinformation related to the “Stop the Steal” movement on .

Between January 11th and February 27th 2021, MIDAC detected and classifed tweets containing keywords related to the “Stop the Steal” movement. In total, MIDAC analyzed 1,246,441 “Stop the Steal”-related tweets posted by 564,907 users. MISINFORMATION WATCH

KEY FINDINGS 1. “Stop the Steal” Supporters Are Most Commonly Tweeting About Three False Narratives

a. “Joe Biden is Colluding with China to Steal the Election and Create a “New World Order” A total of 50,214 tweets related to "Stop the Steal" mentioned a connection between Biden and China. Popular allegations included that Biden secretly gave the Chinese government access to the U.S. power grid, Biden has been covertly enabling Chinese communists to infltrate the U.S. political establishment for years, and that Biden and China are teaming up to create a “New World Order” which will feature a global totalitarian movement.

b. “Mike Lindell’s New Documentary Proves there was Election Fraud” Despite the fact that CEO Mike Lindell was banned from Twitter in late January, his flm about election fraud was mentioned in 35,105 tweets related to “Stop the Steal.” The flm, titled “Absolute Proof” has been removed by YouTube and Vimeo for spreading false misinformation..

c. “ is to Blame for ’s Election Loss” Dominion Voting Systems, the company that provided voting software for the 2020 election, was cited in 17,211 tweets related to “Stop the Steal,” with the most popular allegations being that Dominion purposefully deleted and/or mislabeled votes cast for Donald Trump.

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2. Christian Nationalist Rhetoric is being Used by “Stop the Steal” Supporters to Incite Violence and Unrest References to “God”, “God’s Plan” and/or God’s “digital army of patriots” can be found in over 15,000 tweets related to “Stop the Steal.” Over 10,000 users who self-identifed as “patriots” in their profles tweeted in support of “Stop the Steal”, claiming it is a patriot’s “duty to #stopthesteal,” “kill the communists” and/or “take our country back.”

3. Most Accounts Tweeting about “Stop the Steal” are Humans not Bots Less than 1,000 of the 564,907 users tweeting about “Stop the Steal” are likely bots. This is a stark contrast from the 2016 election, when bots disseminated over 1 million tweets and comprised a large percentage of accounts spreading misinformation on Twitter.

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Photographs (From Left): Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times||Amy Harris/Rex/Shutterstock||Gabriela Bhaskar/New York Times OUR TAKEAWAYS • Since the vast majority of the accounts tweeting about “Stop the Steal” are not bots, this conspiracy is more organic and will be harder to quell than misinformation linked to the 2016 election. In 2016, by Twitter’s own admission, there were at least 50,000 Russia- linked bots spreading misinformation about the election, whereas the overwhelming majority of “Stop the Steal”-related tweets are being posted by human users. Twitter has gotten better at removing bots from its platform but changing the minds of real people will prove to be a lot more complicated. • In order to combat Christian nationalism, we must enlist the support of Christian leaders and institutions. Whether we like it or not, Christian nationalism is being used to incite violence in the United States. The CVE community spent the last 20 years learning how to (and how not to) leverage religious leaders in the fght against Jihadist terrorism. We must apply these learnings to effectively harness the support of American Christian leaders and institutions in tackling domestic violent extremism. • Continued interest In Mike Lindell’s flm shows that banning someone from Twitter doesn’t always reduce their infuence and may even increase it. Twitter bans may be a death sentence but you can’t become a martyr without being, well, dead. Lindell’s sustained relevance among “Stop the Steal” believers on Twitter is a good sign for former President Trump and other right-wing personalities facing social media censorship.

About Mythos Labs Mythos Labs uses technology and media to counter online misinformation and harmful narratives. Mythos Labs’ primary activities include using its AI-based technology MIDAC to monitor and assess the impact of online misinformation, producing “edutaining” viral videos that convey positive narratives and conducting digital literacy capacity building programs. Get in touch: [email protected]

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