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The Disinformation Election: Will the wildfire of conspiracy theories impact the vote?
Trust in institutions is at an all-time low, and only 44% of Americans have confidence in the honesty of elections. Distrust and election-related disinformation are leaving society vulnerable to conspiracy theories.
Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, notes that American democracy is in crisis largely because “one thing not in short supply this election season: conspiracy theories.”
As part of GZERO Media’s election coverage, we are tracking the impact of disinformation and conspiracy theories on democracy. To get a sense of how this election may be pulled down a dark and dangerous rabbit hole, click here for our interactive guide to conspiracy theories.
Twitter bans QAnon; CRISPR gene tech
Nicholas Thompson, Editor-in-chief of WIRED, provides his perspective on technology news:
Twitter has said it will knockout QAnon. How will that work out?
QAnon is a strange, mysterious, far-right conspiracy theory. Twitter removing it will actually make a difference. It's very easy to say, "oh, we'll just migrate to Facebook or elsewhere," and that is partly true, but Twitter is a central node in how the conspiracy theory is spread. Remove it, and it will spread more slowly.
How close are we to CRISPR agriculture?
Well, this is in response to a story we just ran in WIRED about the first CRISPR born cow, a cow whose genes had been adjusted using the technique of CRISPR to make it then male, which is better for beef cows. Dairy cows, you want female. Beef cows, you want male. It didn't work out perfectly. The cow is a boy but has all kinds of other problems suggesting for this particular use of CRISPR, it's going to be a long time.