Kate Starbird had been studying online conspiracy theories for years when she realized last year that she was at the center of one.
“I can recognize a good conspiracy theory,” she recalled to HuffPost. “I’ve been studying them a long time.”
Right-wing journalists and politicians had begun the process of falsely characterizing Starbird’s work — which focused on viral disinformation about the 2020 election — as the beating heart of a government censorship operation. The theory was that researchers working to investigate and flag viral rumors and conspiracy theories had acted as pass-throughs for overzealous bureaucrats, pressuring social media platforms to silence supporters of former President Donald Trump.
The year that followed has changed the field of disinformation research entirely.
Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives last fall, and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — a key player in Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results — began leading a “Weaponization of the Federal Government” committee shortly thereafter. Among other things, the group zeroed in on researchers who rang alarm bells about Trump’s “Big Lie” that the election had been stolen...
During a launch event for the Center for Democracy and Technology report, Rebekah Tromble, director of George Washington University’s Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics, articulated the feeling in the field. She called for researchers to ask themselves “difficult questions” and wondered aloud whether the yearslong focus on “fake news” and mis- and disinformation had “created a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
The recent pressures on the field, she said, “give us an opportunity to think a bit more critically about how the work fits into the larger public dialogue.” To that end, she echoed an admonition from Harbath, who was also on the call, about how the field should look for answers amid incoming fire: “Panic responsibly.”
The full story can be found in the Huffington Post.