Your Election Day misinformation guide

Hi, it’s Davey in New York. It’s Misinformation Day in America. But first…Today’s must-reads:• The two most powerful people in crypto are sp [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi, it’s Davey in New York. It’s Misinformation Day in America. But first… Today’s must-reads: • The two [most powerful people in crypto]( are sparring • Mastodon, a Twitter rival, [can’t keep up with demand]( • Lyft is [losing ground to Uber]( Big viral lies It’s Election Day in the US, which means if you use a major social network, expect misleading posts to proliferate. At least there’s the comfort of knowing this typically follows a well-worn path. Here’s what to look out for: Misinformation tends to be cyclical — the conspiracy peddlers know the opportune times to jump in and float their outlandish rumors in that gray space between when a major event is occurring (such as voting) and when our knowledge of the outcomes of said event is definite (election results). This sequence is so predictable that misinformation experts already had a pretty good idea before Tuesday of what to expect. The Election Integrity Partnership, a group of research organizations studying misinformation campaigns, [predicted]( a flood of content from people documenting suspicious activity during a trip to the polls, some of which may be framed as a “personal experience” but create a more general air of suspicion around the election process. There will be misleading stories and mundane videos of ballots being moved, election machine malfunctions, poll worker “collusion,” the Postal Service messing up mail-in ballot delivery, etc. We should expect these unverified election rumors to be collected throughout Election Day on social media, said Mike Caulfield, a research scientist who studies election misinformation at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public and a member of the research group. There will be a “massive amount of stories and rumors that are circulating on election night and the day after,” he said. Election audits have [affirmed](, [time and again](, [that voter fraud]( [is exceedingly rare](. There’s no reason to expect this would change in the midterm elections in any significant way. Some candidates, however, are already teeing up the idea — with the help of social media — that the results of the election, whatever they may be, cannot be trusted. As my colleague [Jack Gillum](mailto:jgillum1@bloomberg.net) and I reported last week, hundreds of Republican candidates have shared posts [denying the results of the 2020 election]( on Facebook and Twitter in the past year. Not only were those posts not labeled with any contextual information by the companies at the time of our review, the analysis found that candidates pushing the so-called Big Lie actually garnered more engagement from their followers. There are reasons these lies go unchecked: Meta Platforms Inc., which prioritized election work in prior years, is preoccupied with the metaverse and a 71% stock drop this year. Twitter Inc., meanwhile, is still undergoing a major transition under Elon Musk, who said Twitter should be politically neutral and then advised his 115 million followers on Monday to [vote Republican in this election](. Twitter dismissed 15% of its US trust and safety group last week and gutted teams whose work [helped inform the content moderation process and the policies that govern it]( — including the company’s curation team, which wrote context for trending topics and worked with media groups to publish content that fact-checked major news events, and its entire human rights team that led the information response to conflicts in Ukraine, Ethiopia and elsewhere. Perhaps worse than misleading voters is the risk of tricking them into doing something dangerous, said Joan Donovan, the research director at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. “If there is a viral hoax that does upend an election or triggers violence that causes a polling station to close, then we may see serious challenges to this free-for-all online,” she said. Whatever the result, the candidates promoting the false idea that elections are routinely stolen have already triumphed, in a way: Their voter base is primed to think any loss means a rigged election, and they’re happy to loudly proclaim so on social media. In effect, they’ve created an alternate reality where they can never lose. —[Davey Alba](mailto:dalba13@bloomberg.net) Today in Twitter Elon Musk’s deal saddled the company with $1.2 billion in annual interest payments on its debt. This can help explain why the world’s richest person is [in such a hurry to cut costs and boost revenue](, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. A software engineer fired last week from Twitter told a US labor board that [he was retaliated against](. The job cuts in India, meanwhile, affected more than 90% of Twitter staff there. Now [there are just a dozen employees left]( in the country. Jeep joined GM and VW in [pausing its ads on Twitter](. Get fully charged Two video game giants reported earnings. Activision Blizzard, which is seeking to close a deal with Microsoft, [exceeded expectations](. Take-Two, the maker of Grand Theft Auto, [fell short](. TikTok should be banned in the US, said a Republican member of [the country’s communications regulator](. The largest-ever startup investment in North Africa was $150 million in the [on-demand company Yassir](. Elsewhere in Africa, the founders and co-CEOs of the e-commerce company [Jumia stepped down under pressure]( for persistent losses. The owner of the Indonesian e-commerce company Blibli held [Jakarta’s second-largest IPO]( of the year. [Sign up for Cyber Bulletin](, our new weekly newsletter on cybersecurity, for exclusive coverage inside the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage — and how businesses are playing defense. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights.​​​​​​​ You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Tech Daily newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. 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