The New Shields of our Democracy
By Oliver Rosand
When I ask my friends if they know about the ‘laptop from hell,’ they have no idea what I’m talking about. Stories about ‘Hunter Biden’s Laptop’ ring zero bells for my politically aware college-age peers (admittedly more left-leaning). The story I’m referencing had the potential to manipulate the election for Donald Trump. As reported by the New York Post, they described a laptop formerly owned by Joe Biden’s son that contained damning evidence of Biden family corruption in Ukraine. I use the word manipulate intentionally, as the story was never proven. It was repeatedly pushed by the Trump campaign as a fake narrative against our now president-elect, with little factual evidence. According to a growing group of intelligence experts, the story had all the trappings of a Russian misinformation campaign. So why didn’t this bombshell story make it to my politically aware friends? Why do those headlines ring no bells? Through the careful work of mainstream and social media companies working to suppress the false narrative, they were able to make sure the story never reached the mainstream. After repeatedly failing to take real action against our country’s growing misinformation problem, this was a good step for these companies; however, the bigger test is yet to come, for as I write this, Donald Trump is attempting to steal the election.
Close elections are often shaped by an ‘October Surprise.’ Elections will frequently have a piece of news late in the cycle where being right before the election lends it extra power in determining outcomes. In 2016, the October Surprise was FBI director James Comey’s announcement that he was investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email account for government use. In 2008, the October Surprise was reported to be Obama’s half-aunt being an illegal immigrant in Boston. In 2020, the polls were not favorable for the Trump campaign, and the campaign decided to initiate an October Surprise of their own.
The ‘laptop from hell’ refers to a laptop, supposedly owned by Joe Biden’s son Hunter, uncovered to reveal that Joe Biden conducted shady business dealings with Ukrainian officials. Also included in this story was a supposed business associate of Hunter accusing him of wrongdoing, incorrect claims that Biden advocated for the firing of a prosecutor to cover up Ukrainian corruption, and apparently a sex-tape. The details are murky, and the story makes little sense. For one, the FBI’s investigation related to the laptop is whether or not Russia is involved, and if it is a part of a broader malign influence operation. Furthermore, Giuliani hasn’t actually released the whole contents of the hard drive to the public for review. In fact, while we can’t say for certain, many (including over 50 former intelligence officials) believe that this story was a Russian misinformation campaign designed to attack Biden in the final days of the election. The amount of control these social media companies have demonstrated over our public sphere is also a cause for concern, however, in this case, it was almost certainly the right call.
The first step for Rudy Giuliani, the Trump official tasked with spreading this story, was finding a place to publish this story. This was the first step our media took in protecting us from this misinformation attack. No matter who Giuliani asked, he could not get mainstream outlets to publish it. Journalistic standards held by the editors at major news organizations were too strong for them to publish this misinformation. They did their research, and they recognized the lack of merit for Giuliani’s claims. Instead, Rudy was forced to turn to the lesser-known, questionably run New York Post. The outlets that Rudy attempted to sell the story to didn’t want it, because they could see how suspicious it was. Journalistic standards for accuracy, while not always present, really stood up for democracy at this moment. For almost five years, mainstream media has been broadcasting anything Trump wants because he was noteworthy, first as a candidate and now as president. Media amplified his claims of voter fraud. They repeatedly allowed him to pedal the idea that he could refuse to leave the White House. But now, even though a prominent Trump surrogate was trying to peddle this story, news media wasn’t buying. Even at the New York Post, those tasked with writing the expose refused to put their name on it, leading to one editor who had never written an article being listed as the lead author of the piece. This in and of itself was a devastating blow to the story. News such as James Comey’s investigation announcement or the NYT exposé on Trump’s taxes were treated as major news, reaching all news networks and pundits. This story, on the other hand, barely made it out of the conspiracy theory hellhole it was dug up from. Without that mainstream stamp of approval, the story failed to make a splash outside of the right-wing media bubble and was destined to circle around the conspiracy-laden halls of Fox News’ pundits and One America News Network (OANN). This was the first step to halting this October Surprise, but stories like this often have a life of their own, and anything can spread on the internet.
It is often said that you can’t hide anything on the internet. The Streisand effect states that if you try to hide something, you often lead to further publicization of it, especially on the internet. This is especially true for misinformation and conspiracy theories. Accessing such information on the internet, via less than credible sources, allows millions of Americans to feel like they are bypassing bias to access their news. Getting your news from Twitter or Facebook is the norm nowadays, so even if Rudy couldn’t get the laptop from hell onto the mainstream media, there was still hope that once the New York Post uploaded to their social media, the misinformation campaign could still take hold.
It seems, however, that Twitter and Facebook learned from their mistakes in the past. Both companies have historically received heavy criticism for their failures to contain the spread of misinformation, so for this test, they acted fast. Facebook proceeded to ‘demote’ the story. This basically means that their algorithms would not promote the story to most users until Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers could evaluate it. Twitter, on the other hand, took much more decisive action. They banned linking to the story on their platform, as well as banning the New York Post Twitter account. Twitter cited their hacked materials policy for this decision, as Twitter bans all materials gained through illegal hacking (although they later backtracked on this reasoning). Twitter even took much more nuclear action, banning high-profile users who shared the story like Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary. While Twitter’s reaction was much stronger and more decisive, both companies took immediate action to attack the misinformation and halt its spread. If we think of misinformation as a pandemic, Twitter and Facebook successfully quarantined the story before it could reach more users. They tossed it into a suite in Dardick and charged it 25 meal points a day.
This reaction to misinformation represents a new, much more proactive example of companies attempting to protect our democracy. Since 2016, these companies have been heavily criticized for their inaction. Facebook and Twitter drove huge amounts of engagement with fake news sites, and mainstream media’s attempts to appear unbiased have amplified many false narratives. These kinds of stories certainly helped swing the election, but it seems that these companies have learned from their mistakes, and I for one was glad to see them taking more decisive action against misinformation.
I want to acknowledge that for some, this kind of story may seem frightening. Indeed, it is a demonstration of the power that these large tech companies have over our information ecosystem. However, to portray this as large tech companies suppressing alternative political speech would be misleading. This isn’t some worrisome trend of Twitter and Facebook suppressing political stories to help candidates. If anything, this story is showing how these companies are moving more towards the roles of news companies, applying journalistic standards to the stories they circulate. We applaud when journalistic standards are used to decide not to publish baseless allegations, and that’s just what this is, simply on a different platform. The choice not to circulate these stories reflects a push for the truth, not a hidden political agenda. The companies wield immense power, and while they may abuse it in the future, this story is not an indicator that they might do so.
However, that was not their biggest test of the election. These companies now face a new test that will be much more difficult to control. As I am writing this, Donald Trump is attempting to steal the election. This is not an exaggeration. Donald Trump and his surrogates are engaging in a concentrated misinformation campaign to delegitimize the electoral process and convince his supporters to not accept the results of the election. We have already seen the danger of this as we see threats of violence against neutral poll workers and bomb threats against counting centers. The rhetoric spewing out of Trump’s mouth and his Twitter feed is dangerous to our democracy, and it now falls on our media companies to fight it. Some news networks have begun to do so. During Trump’s most recent address where he attacked the electoral process with numerous lies, multiple news networks including ABC, MSNBC, and CBS cut away to instead tell viewers about our election’s integrity. Twitter has already been putting little warnings under some of Trump’s tweets. However, the power of their actions will only be known after the fact. Who knows whether it will be enough to protect us from greater conflict? Donald Trump’s dangerous rhetoric is threatening our democracy more so than ever, and the next few weeks will be critical for these companies in their job to protect our democracy.
Media companies are always doing this and social media companies are just adopting it now. The ‘Laptop from Hell’ is a case study in how to stop the flow of misinformation. With careful and decisive action, our mainstream and social media companies were able to shut down a dangerously flagrant story that could have manipulated the election. While we may never know the whole truth of the story, it seems almost certain that to present it as fact to a wide audience would have been a misleading, dangerous attack on the image of our president-elect. Despite this, we can point to hundreds of times when companies failed to act, where news companies amplified Trump’s lies, or social media companies refused to take down doctored videos. Up until the fateful day in October, we had seen little to make us believe that we could be secure in our media networks. It seems as though these companies are taking more steps to safeguard us, as they recognized their mistakes and are working to correct them. I am hopeful that recent actions reflect a change, not a one-time act, however, only time will tell. But even as I’m writing this, the next big test is already approaching, as Donald Trump attempts to steal the election.
Oliver Rosand ’23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at orosand@wustl.edu.