One influencer believed someone who dropped off ballots was a “suspect.”

Two days before Halloween, a Pennsylvania postal worker was delivering a box of mail-in ballots to the Northampton County Courthouse. man He started filming on his phone, asking questions, and followed the postal worker into the building.

The man who was filming was told that the man carrying the ballot box was a postal worker.

“I don’t know, he seems to work at the post office, but that seems very suspicious,” the man filming said, highlighting what he said was an “obscene amount of ballots.”

The video was then zoomed in to get a close-up of the postal worker’s face. As of November 2, it had nearly six million views.

County officials in Pennsylvania confirmed to local media that the man captured in the video was working as a postmaster and doing his job. After the video was posted online, he began receiving threats.

Even before Election Day, unsubstantiated rumors of voter fraud began to focus on specific public officials and voters. In 2020, this type of online activity led to harassment and threats, and ultimately played a role in sparking the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

But this year, videos like these are surfacing in a dedicated community on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, formerly known as Twitter, and inviting more of the same kind of speculation that can lead to threats and harassment.

Sharing concerns and trying to understand the voting process is a normal part of a free and fair election process, said Rene DiResta, an assistant research professor at Georgetown University and an expert on disinformation in elections. “But there’s a really big difference between discussing a concern and showing someone’s face and accusing them of betrayal.”

In 2020, DiResta said many major social media platforms did more to try to add context and amplify information from trusted sources. Under pressure from Republicans. Many platforms have declined on those policies ever since. Perhaps the most important factor is Twitter’s shift to X since billionaire Elon Musk bought it in 2022 and has steadily transformed the platform into a pro-conservative social media site with minimal moderation policies.

“I would say the main difference this time is that X hosts communities where this kind of meaning-making effort takes place,” DiResta said.

Over the past year, Musk has become a major supporter of Donald Trump’s campaign and has become an enthusiastic participant in it himself. Rumors of election fraud On

“Most of the people who respond to the posts are convinced that the election was stolen, and so it’s more like a place where they’re just trying to gather evidence to prove that the thing they decided actually happened,” DiResta said. “And they worry about that because they constantly hear that from political elites that they trust — people like Donald Trump and people like Elon Musk.”

Each individual post is woven into a much broader narrative by pro-Trump politicians and influencers, often with conspiratorial overtones, DiResta said. This combination is meant to imply that the evidence of voter fraud is overwhelming and insurmountable, despite more than 60 court cases, multiple recounts and ballot audits, which have found no evidence of major voting irregularities in 2020.

X did not respond to a request for comment from NPR.

Burned by election lies

The impact on ordinary people who become involved in these conspiracy theories is profound.

The legal nonprofit Protect Democracy has helped file a number of lawsuits Defamation claims “On behalf of people who suddenly found themselves being lied to in the public sphere over claims that they were breaking the law when they were not breaking the law,” said Jane Bentrott, Safeguarding Democracy Counsel, against election deniers after the 2020 election.

Pro-Trump figures and partisan media organizations like One America News She publicly retracted the accusations and reached settlements With people who were falsely accused of rigging the election.

One high-profile case Defending Democracy is involved in is a defamation suit against Trump’s then-lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who baselessly accused two Georgia election workers by name of tampering with ballots.

Giuliani was found liable for defamation and a jury awarded the pair $148 million last year.

“The torch that Giuliani lit with those lies and passed on to so many others changed every aspect of our lives,” said Shay Moss, one of the workers. “Our homes, our families, our work, our sense of security, our mental health.” After the jury returned its verdict.

“As you know, and I hope others who are paying attention will learn, people who falsely accuse others of breaking the law can have serious consequences for those lies,” Bentrott said.

But even successful defamation cases often take years to resolve, and Giuliani has yet to pay the women anything.

Defending Democracy has made an effort to hold prominent figures like Giuliani accountable for spreading false accusations. But overall, the media landscape these influencers are a part of has remained healthy, according to DiResta.

“What you’re seeing is a pipeline through which someone makes a claim, usually a small account, someone with a high concern that seems very real to them, but it gets picked up by someone who probably has tens to hundreds of thousands of followers.”

DiResta has examined the way the Capitol riot on January 6 was driven in part by beliefs in the messages generated by that line.

The day after the video of the Pennsylvania postal employee was posted, its creator wrote on As of November 2, the video remains available online.

DiResta said she’s confident US election officials are better prepared for what’s to come in this election, but in the end, “the tone is still over the top. People on social media are able to come up with evidence, but they do it proportionately.” framework set by political leaders.”