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Misinformation spikes as Trump confirms COVID-19 diagnosis

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump hold hands on stage after the first presidential debate at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in
Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 29, 2020.
Associated Press
By AMANDA SEITZ and BEATRICE falsely claim is running a child traf- election that's already seen a high Roughly 10,000 of those retweets
DUPUY ficking ring. In the final weeks of level of fake news." touted the drug hydroxychloro-
Associated Press the presidential campaign, Trump's Facebook said Friday that it imme- quine, an unproven treatment for
CHICAGO (AP) — News Friday that COVID-19 diagnosis was swept diately began monitoring misinfor- COVID-19, as a treatment for the
President Donald Trump and first into an online vortex of coronavi- mation around the president's di- president. Another 13,000 retweets
lady Melania Trump had tested rus misinformation and the false- agnosis and had started applying were related to a QAnon con-
positive for COVID-19 sparked an hoods swirling around this polar- fact checks to some false posts. spiracy theory that the president is
explosion of rumors, misinformation izing election. Trump himself has Twitter, meanwhile, was monitor- going into quarantine while mass
and conspiracy theories that in a driven much of that confusion and ing an uptick in "copypasta" cam- arrests of high-profile politicians
matter of hours littered the social distrust on the campaign trail, from paigns about Trump's illness. "Copy- like Trump's former Democratic
media feeds of many Americans. his presidential podium and his pasta" campaigns are attempts by nominee Hillary Clinton are carried
Tweets shared thousands of times Twitter account, where he's made numerous Twitter accounts to par- out, according to the company's
claimed Democrats might have wrong claims about widespread rot the same phrase over and over analysis.
somehow intentionally infected the voter fraud or hawked unproven to inundate users with messaging, Most of the conversation was com-
president with the coronavirus dur- cures for the coronavirus, such as and they are sometimes signals ing from unverified accounts on
ing the debates. Others speculat- hydroxychloroquine. of coordinated activity. The social Twitter, said Gideon Blocq, the
ed in Facebook posts that maybe "This is both a political crisis weeks media company said it was work- CEO of VineSight.
the president was faking his illness. before the election and also a ing to limit views on those tweets. "A lot of them seem very happy
And the news also ignited constant health crisis; it's a perfect storm," But nearly 30,000 Twitter users had about what's going to happen be-
conjecture among QAnon follow- said Alexandra Cirone, an assist- retweeted a variety of conspiracy cause they think Hillary Clinton is
ers, who peddle a baseless belief ant professor at Cornell University theories about the news by Friday going to be arrested," Blocq said of
that Trump is a warrior against a who studies the effect of misinfor- morning, according to an analysis the QAnon accounts.
secret network of government of- mation on government. "This is just by VineSight, a tech company that
ficials and celebrities that they one more piece of fake news in an tracks online misinformation. Continued on Page 2