Reporting on theaudit of the 2020 presidential election现在在亚利桑那州的马里科帕县进行National Memo’s Steven Rosenfeld writes that one floor observer was overheard saying, “I hope they are fake ballots, because I am seeing so many Biden.”
After the November 7 election, Trump supporters wondered how Biden could possibly have won when all they’d seen for months were reports of packed Trump rallies, yards filled with Trump signs, and excited Facebook posts about Trump and his upcoming win.
They were honestly shocked when Trump lost. They simply couldn’t connect up their own experience with the result of the election. They live within a right-wing echo chamber where opposing viewpoints are rarely heard. They saw the widespread support for Biden only through the lens of right-wing misinformation and disinformation. They dismissed Biden’s continual lead in the polls as “fake.”
Facebook, the go-to social media platform for Trump supporters in 2020, did a lot to contribute to the echo chamber. When the social network’s algorithms pick up on a user’s interest in right-wing content, it serves them more and more of it, and filters out other opinions. All through the campaign, many Trump supporters saw nothing but news posts and shared memes about Trump’s achievements as president, his huge rallies, and his mockery of Joe Biden and the Democrats.
And right-wingers were, and remain, the most energized group on Facebook, even as Donald Trumpremains expelledfrom the platform after he helped incite an insurrection on January 6.
在过去24小时内，美国Facebook页面的表现最佳的链接帖子来自：
1. Dan Bongino
2. Franklin Graham
3. Dan Bongino
4. Ben Shapiro
5. Ben Shapiro
6. Ben Shapiro
7. Dan Bongino
8. Newsmax
9. Ben Shapiro
10. Forbes— Facebook's Top 10 (@FacebooksTop10)May 24, 2021
The disappearance of local news sources is also contributing to Americans’ politically homogenous media diet. Local newspapers and TV affiliates areoften no longer presentin the community to report on diverse subjects and opinions. In the absence of that coverage, community members are often left only with national news sources. In red America, that means Fox News, which did its part to sow doubt in the election result.
Partisan segregation, online and off, may explain Trump supporters’ shock in the week after November 7, 2020, when it became clear Biden had prevailed. It helps explain how Donald Trump was able to sell the Big Lie that he’d won. People were ready to believe it—it provided an explanation for an election result that didn’t make sense. In fact,60% of Republicans仍然说他们认为特朗普是选举的真正赢家。
The audit in Arizona shows that red America is not letting go of the Big Lie easily. There are now plans for asimilar auditin Fulton County, Georgia. And belief in the Big Lie has provided political cover for Republicans in state government to take big leaps forward in advancing new voting restrictions.
媒体使两个独立的媒体宇宙形成了两个独立的政治现实。民主是一项团队运动，但共和党人和民主党人越来越无法在同一竞争环境中见面。只要Facebook和Fox等信息守门员继续从党派过滤器泡沫中获利，他们将继续使他们能够。