You're listening to Disinformed, a mini series from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. It brings me no pleasure to report that right wing media keeps on giving us great examples of how complete lies are created, spread and mainstreamed online. And this time it's about Vice President Kamala Harris. The New York Post alleged that unaccompanied miners who crossed the border were given copies of Harris's
book as part of welcome kits. The story included a picture of Harris's children's book called Superheroes Are Everywhere, alongside a backpack and hygiene items on a cop at the Long Beach emergency intake site for unaccompanied miners. The story went viral, and importantly, it wasn't just promoted by fringe
right wing conspiracy theorists. It was shared by mainstream Republican figures and elected officials, like the official GOP Twitter account, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and White House Republican whip Steve Scalise, who tweeted, is Kamala Harris profiting off the border crisis? Americans need to know? The story was picked up and repeated by other big conservative news outlets like Fox News
and The Blaze. Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocey even asked White House Press Secretary Jensaki about it in a press conference. Every migrant child being brought to a shelter is being given a copy of her children's book Superheroes Are Everywhere? Do you know why that is? And if she is making any money off of that? They're talking about if they go to shelters or if they go to welcome kit. Apparently there's a copy of her
twenty nineteen children's book, Superheroes Are Everywhere. I'd have to certainly check on that. Only none of it was true. The Washington Post confirmed that one copy of Harris's book that was donated not included in quote welcome kits, that was in that now viral photo, and that one photo was the basis for the entire fabrication that Harris's books were being included in welcome kits and the insinuation from Republican elected officials that Harris was personally making a profit
from the situation at our border. The US Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to Newsweek that the reference book was one of an assortment of hundreds of titles donated to the Long Beach Emergency Intake Site as part of a City of Long Beach New Books and Toys drive. No taxpayer dollars were used to purchase Vice President Harris's book. Kevin Lee, chief Public affairs officer for the city, also clarified that the city had
no involvement in the books curation. It was just donated as part of their book and toy drive. The City of Long Beach, in partnership with the Long Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau, had a citywide book and toy drive that is ongoing to support the migrant children. He said, the single book you referenced is one of hundreds of various books that have already been donated. The book was
not purchased by HHS or the city. Now, after the story was debunked, the reporter who wrote it, Laura Italiano, resigned, admitting that she'd been pressured into writing it, saying, the Kamala Harris story an incorrect story I was ordered to write, which I failed to push back hard enough against. Was my breaking point. Now the New York Post has not
even officially attracted the story. Instead, they temporarily removed it from their site and then republished it with an editor's down at the bottom saying the original version of this article said migrant kids were getting Harris's book in a welcome kid, but that has been updated to note that only one known copy of the book was given to
a child. This is completely insufficient when you consider the lie is already out there, and all of those prominent Republican figures I told you about earlier, their tweets are still up on Twitter as of me recording this episode. And here's why it's not really about this one lie. The data is clear that women of color, especially Black women in politics, faced a disproportionate amount of disinformation, especially lies in attacks that a lie on negative stereotypes about
our gender and race. They paint us Black women as untrustworthy liars and rely on unfair attacks on our identities to fuel those lies. Even before Harris was named as Biden's running me, she was subjected to a flood of racist, sexist disinformation on social media, like posts that made racist claims that she wasn't even eligible to serve in the White House, or that she was lying about her black
and Indian heritage. Intelligent software service Signal Labs found over one million mentions of Harris on Twitter since June that had hashtags or terms associated with misinformation about her. Now
compare that to her white male counterparts. Misinformation accounted for less than one percent of Twitter talk when Mike Pence and Tim Caine were running for vice president, while misleading information about Harris is much more prevalent, making up more than four percent of the conversation about her on Twitter.
And it's not just Harris. Gender disinformation campaigns are widespread for women in politics, and her report for the Wilson Center called Malign Creativity, How gender, sex and lies are weaponized against women online. Researcher Alexandra Pavlik found that gendered abuse affected twelve of thirteen research subjects, while nine out of thirteen subjects were targeted with gender disinformation in narratives.
These narratives were racist, transphobic, and sexualized in nature. The overwhelming majority of the recorded keywords relating to the abuse and disinformation were identified on Twitter and directed toward Kamala Harris, who accounted for seventy eight percent of the total recorded instances. Her report also found that online abusers used evasive, tricky language like dog whistles, where they don't come right out and say they're racist or sexist thing in order to
avoid detection by social media moderation tools. I'm talking about things like social media posts that refer to Kamala Harris as quote heals up Harris a sexist insinuation that she quote slept her way to the top, which is a common sexist line of attacks that Harris faces online. And here's why this is such a big problem for all of us, not just women. When attacks on women and women of color are allowed to fester and spread, it is a chilling effect on women's participation in politics and
political discourse. It keeps us from running for office or even just speaking up about our political opinions online because who would want to volunteer to be attacked or become the target of a disinformation campaign just because of who you are. It keeps our entire country from being able to have a democracy or everyone women women of color are able to fully participate. And this isn't just a threat to women, it's a threat to all of us. Everyone is better served when all of us can be
fully involved in our democracy. If we're ever going to create an equal playing field for the next generation of women in politics. We've got to create a digital media landscape, or racist sexist attacks are not widespread and are just not tolerated. Women, women of color, and black women deserve to be judged by our records, actions, and words, not sexist, racist lies and attacks on who we are. If you've
enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi, We'd love to hear from you at Hello at tangoi dot com. Disinformed is brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Inner Man. It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unbust Creative Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tory Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Lamotto is our contributing producer. I'm
your host Bridget Tod. For more great podcasts, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.