Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00021357
Activism
Inequality Media
Bad news for the right-wing disinformation machine ... The Purple America Education Project and MoveOn
Original article:
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Robert Reich
Dear fellow MoveOn member,
2021 has been a heck of a year for misinformation, hasn't it?
From the Big Lie about the 2020 election that led to the deadly insurrection to dangerous, anti-science conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines, the right wing is doing everything they can to carry out a mass radicalization of their base.
That's why, this year, my team at Inequality Media and I launched the Purple America Education Project, one of the biggest, most strategically impactful anti-disinformation projects in our history.
The Purple America Education Project uses social media and scientific message testing to reach out to the people being targeted by right-wing disinformation and to inoculate them against right-wing lies and conspiracy theories.
Here's how it works: First, we identify people who aren't already getting progressive messages in their media feeds, like young people and moderates who are open to our ideas. This is important because Americans tend to live in an information filter bubble, hearing only from sources that reinforce their current views. This project is all about breaking through those information silos.
After rigorous scientific testing, we identify the most persuasive and compelling content and deliver it to our target audiences. The evidence shows our project is working: Our best-performing videos are being watched to completion almost nine times more often than the benchmark rates. That means people are engaged with our content, learning about important issues, and are being shown exactly why right-wing talking points are bogus.
MoveOn has been one of our strongest partners, and so today I'm personally asking MoveOn members like you an important question: Will you support Inequality Media and our efforts to combat right-wing disinformation by making a tax-deductible donation of $3 to us today?
Peter, here are just three of the bogus far-right lies we’re up against:
1. The Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. A majority of conservatives falsely believe that President Joe Biden is an illegitimate president because he stole the election from Trump.1 This flat-out falsehood has been used to gin up the GOP base, pass voter suppression laws that disenfranchise voters of color, and was even the basis for the January 6 insurrection.
2. Dangerous and bizarre conspiracy theories about COVID vaccines, including that they don't work, that they make you magnetic, and that they are a ruse to implant the public with microchips. Ninety percent of Democrats are vaccinated, compared to only 58% of Republicans, and the unvaccinated have kept COVID-19 surging across the country, costing people's health, livelihoods, and lives.2
3. The QAnon conspiracy theory. Starting in 2017, 'Q,' an online figure pretending to be a high-ranking government official, suggested that U.S. officials and Hollywood celebrities were Satan-worshiping, pedophilic cannibals. And that Donald Trump was the only person who could stop them. Since the start of 2020, QAnon's following has grown by a jaw-dropping 581%, and top intelligence officials see QAnon as a growing national security threat.3,4
Research shows that right-wing misinformation generates more likes, more shares, and more engagement than almost any other type of content on social media.5
And we know Facebook isn't doing anything to stop the spread of misinformation. So it's up to us to do everything we can to put an end to these lies.
That's exactly what efforts like our Purple America Education Project do. But we need your help to keep this project, and others like it, going. Will you make a tax-deductible donation of $3 today to Inequality Media so we can keep up the fight against right-wing lies in 2022?
The results we've seen from the Purple America Education Project have been stunning: The data show we're beating Ben Shapiro and Sean Hannity out of the water on Facebook engagement!
On Facebook, our page receives three times more engagement per post than Fox News and almost FIVE times the shares—despite having only a fraction of their staff and budget.
And we're making a HUGE splash on TikTok with younger audiences.
The Purple America Education Project is working—but in an environment where the far right is ratcheting up their embrace of conspiracy theories, it's clear we need to invest more and go bigger to defeat their lies and get out the truth.
Will you chip in $3 today to Inequality Media to get out the truth, including to expand the Purple America Education Project and launch other hard-hitting projects and campaigns that fight back against dangerous lies and conspiracy theories?
Thanks for all you do.
–Robert Reich
Inequality Media
Sources:
1. 'Most Republicans still believe 2020 election was stolen from Trump – poll,' The Guardian, May 24, 2021 https://act.moveon.org/go/159734?t=5&akid=312250%2E20152613%2E4oal2F
2. 'For COVID-19 vaccinations, party affiliation matters more than race and ethnicity,' Brookings, October 1, 2021 https://act.moveon.org/go/159674?t=7&akid=312250%2E20152613%2E4oal2F
3. 'QAnon and the storm of the U.S. Capitol: The offline effect of online conspiracy theories,' The Conversation, January 7, 2021 https://act.moveon.org/go/159735?t=9&akid=312250%2E20152613%2E4oal2F
4. 'US officials see QAnon adherents as an evolving security threat,' MSNBC, June 15, 2021 https://act.moveon.org/go/159736?t=11&akid=312250%2E20152613%2E4oal2F
5. 'Right-wing misinformation on Facebook is more engaging than its left-wing counterpart, research finds,' CNN, March 3, 2021 https://act.moveon.org/go/159737?t=13&akid=312250%2E20152613%2E4oal2F
Want to support MoveOn's work? Right-wing groups are spending tens of millions of dollars on TV ads to smear critical progressive legislation. Meanwhile, donations to progressive groups like MoveOn are plummeting now that a Democrat is in the White House, meaning we don't have the resources to fight back. That's a huge problem, and that's why we urgently need your support.
Will you chip in to MoveOn to fight right-wing lies and pass urgent legislation to confront the multiple crises our country faces?
Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.
Contributions to MoveOn Civic Action are not tax-deductible for income tax purposes. This email was sent to Peter Burgess on December 8, 2021. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. MoveOn's privacy policy was recently updated. To read our new privacy policy, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.