When typos are deliberate.
Donald Trump has conducted much of his presidency by tweet. But have you ever thought about his hashtags? |
I admit, I hadn’t. Then the journalist Emily Dreyfuss dissected one hashtag — #BidenCrimeFamily — for a new Op-Ed. Her piece illustrates how hashtags serve as a conduit for disinformation and how even typos can be deliberate. |
The phrase takes legitimate questions about Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, and his business dealings and reduces it to a hashtag that can be used to spread misinformation. (Senate Republicans investigated and found no evidence of improper influence or wrongdoing by the former vice president.) |
Here are some of the major moments. |
It started with a reporter on the right-wing outlet One America News Network, who first shared the hashtag. |
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The Fox News host Sean Hannity and Donald Trump Jr. started tying Mr. Biden to the “crime family” concept around this time. But it wasn’t until Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, started broadcasting it that the slogan really took off. |
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A crucial next stage was getting politicians, mainstream media and other prominent figures to pick up the hashtag and introduce it to more viewers. Fox News obliged: |
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Twitter, trying to slow the spread of misinformation associated with the hashtag, removed it from search results in a process called de-indexing. But the army of Trump supporters noticed. |
That brings us to Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed: |
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But wait — did you notice the typo? He used two “i”s in “family.” It’s called typosquatting, and the misspelling allowed him to beat the Twitter ban. |
Emily’s compelling timeline convinces me that focusing on Mr. Trump’s misinformation is not enough. The president is just one player in a network of surrogates and supporters. We could call this network one aspect of “Trumpism.” And it may outlast Mr. Trump. |
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Here’s what we’re focusing on today: |
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