'Targeted disinformation' warning: Beware of social media posts, Georgia Secretary of State says; Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), November 1, 2024

• GPB News Staff, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB); 'Targeted disinformation' warning: Beware of social media posts, Georgia Secretary of State say

"Halloween night, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger released a warning to voters: Social media posts may include disinformation from foreign sources.

This came after he announced that Georgia exceeded 50% statewide turnout among active voters, with 3,653,333 Georgians having cast ballots, 3,426,851 of those voting early as of Thursday.

“Earlier today, our office became aware of a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia ID’s claiming to have voted multiple times," he wrote.

"This is false and is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen in this and other elections. It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the 2024 Presidential election," he said.

The viral video alleging voting fraud in Georgia, claiming a Haitian immigrant has voted multiple times in the sate, had spread widely across social media sites, including X, by Thursday evening.

"This is obviously fake and part of a disinformation effort," Raffensperger wrote. He made the assumption that the post could be the product of "Russian troll farms.""

The disinformation factory threatening national security; Washington Post, February 16, 2018

David Von Drehle, Washington Post; The disinformation factory threatening national security

"“Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it,” wrote Jonathan Swift more than 300 years ago. What would he have said in the age of Twitter?

A sobering paper published in the winter edition of Strategic Studies Quarterly — the strategy journal of the U.S. Air Force — explains how propagandists manipulate social media in their cyberwars against the United States. Hostile forces, employing automated bots, leverage the blind spots and biases of unwitting Americans to help them send falsehoods flying to spread division and demoralization.

Figuring out how to fight back, in a free society of open communication, is the most urgent national security challenge we face. Friday’s indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III of a Russian trolling operation is a welcome sign that we are joining the battle. But so far, we are losing. And should we fail, the future will belong to authoritarian states that protect their virtual borders by controlling Internet access."