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Kate Starbird
@katestarbird.bsky.social
Professor at University of Washington, HCDE. Cofounder of the UW Center for an Informed Public. Researcher of online rumors and disinformation. Also, former basketball player (Stanford, ABL, WNBA).
11.7k followers1.3k following1.5k posts
KSkatestarbird.bsky.social

Rapid analysis from our team re: an error w/in an election system in AZ that was exploited to levy false claims of mass voting by non-citizens. This rumor uses a common tactic of seizing upon a real issue, but warping its meaning to fit a "rigged elction" frame. uwcip.substack.com/p/error-in-a...

Error in Arizona’s Voter Registration System Fuels Rumors of Non-Citizen Voting
Error in Arizona’s Voter Registration System Fuels Rumors of Non-Citizen Voting

Rapid Research Post

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KSkatestarbird.bsky.social

We track the spread of these rumors — which misleadingly framed a software error that failed to flag compliance issues with new voter laws for old (<1996) registrations — across influencers on X, including claims of a "cover-up" as administrators predicted false rumors would emerge around the error.

Cumulative graph of X posts framing the error as reflecting untrustworthy or "rigged" elections. The x axis is time, from Sept 15 to Oct 8. The y axis is the total number of x posts, from 0 on 9/15 to > 300,000 on 10/8. Individual posts are plotted as spheres along the graph, sized by the number of reposts. The text of five highly-retweeted posts are overlaid on the graph, beginning with a very highly retweeted post from LauraLoomer on 9/17 that set off the first spike.
1
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KS
Kate Starbird
@katestarbird.bsky.social
Professor at University of Washington, HCDE. Cofounder of the UW Center for an Informed Public. Researcher of online rumors and disinformation. Also, former basketball player (Stanford, ABL, WNBA).
11.7k followers1.3k following1.5k posts