Election Frauds Revealed in Podcasts Before the Capitol Riots,

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck summed up his prediction for how Election Day would unfold: President Donald J. Trump would win that night, but his leadership would erode when the questionable postal votes arrived and Joseph R. Biden Jr. unexpected advantage.

“No one will believe the result because this time they changed the way we elect a president,” he said.

None of the widespread voter fraud predictions came true. But podcasters have often developed the mistaken belief that elections were illegitimate, first as a trickle before the election and then as a tsunami, in the weeks leading up to the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Brookings Institution analyzed transcripts of nearly 1,500 episodes from the 20 most popular political podcasts. About half of the episodes aired between the election and the January 6 rebellion included incorrect information about the election. analysis.

In some weeks, 60 percent of episodes talked about election fraud conspiracy theories followed by Brookings. These included false allegations that software bugs interfered with the count, fake ballot papers were used, and voting machines operated by Dominion Voting Systems were set up to aid Democrats. Such theories gained currency in Republican circles and would later be used to justify additional electoral inspections. across the country.

The new research highlights just how much misinformation podcasts spread using platforms operated by Apple, Google, Spotify and others, often with little content control. While social media companies widely criticized for their role in spreading electoral misinformation and Covid-19 vaccines, they both crashed last year. Podcasts and the companies that distribute them have escaped similar scrutiny, the researchers say, because podcasts are more difficult to analyze and review.

“People don’t know how bad this problem is in podcasts,” said Valerie Wirtschafter, a senior data analyst at Brookings who co-authored the report with Chris Meserole, director of research at Brookings.

Dr. After downloading and transcribing over 30,000 podcast episodes that are considered “talk shows,” Wirtsch means they offer analysis and commentary rather than solid news updates. He created a glossary of electoral fraud, focusing on 1,490 election-related episodes from 20 popular shows. After transcribing the podcasts, a research team searched for keywords and manually checked each word to determine whether the speaker supported or denounced the claims.

The analysis showed that in the months leading up to the election, conservative podcasters focused mostly on fears that postal votes could lead to fraud.

At the time, political analysts had a “red mirageTrump’s early leadership may be eroded as mailed ballots that tend to be counted later are expected to come from Democratic-leaning areas. As the votes are counted, so what exactly happened. But podcasters have used varying fortunes to cast doubt on the integrity of the selection.

Election misinformation skyrocketed from about 6 percent of episodes before the election to about 52 percent of episodes that contained misinformation in the weeks after the election.

The main culprit in Brookings’ analysis was Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump. His podcast “Bannon’s War Room” was flagged 115 times for episodes that used voter fraud terms included in Brookings’ analysis between the election and January 6.

“Do you know why they would steal this election?” “Because they don’t think you’re going to do anything about it,” Mr Bannon asked on 3 November.

As the January 6 protest drew nearer, his podcast pushed those claims even more. mistaken belief that poll workers are handing out signs disqualifying ballots.

“We are now, as they say, at the point of attack,” said Mr Bannon the day before the protest. “Tomorrow is the point of attack. It will begin. It will be very dramatic.”

Mr. Bannon’s show Removed from Spotify After meeting in November 2020 beheading federal officials, but remains available at Apple and Google.

When reached for comment Monday, Mr. Bannon said President Biden was “an illegitimate resident of the White House”, citing election investigations that showed they were “destroying his voters’ approval”. Many legal professionals have argued There is no way to cancel the selection.

Fox News host Sean Hannity also topped the Brookings data. The podcast and radio show “The Sean Hannity Show” is currently America’s most popular radio talk show and is reaching upwards. 15 million radio listeners, according to Talk Media.

In one episode, Mr. Hannity said, “Underage people vote, people who moved the vote, people who never re-recorded the vote, dead people who voted – we’ve chronicled it all.”

Allegations of voter fraud came not just from Mr. Hannity, but from his guests, including pollster John McLaughlin, who shared a private exchange with Mr Trump.

According to Mr McLaughlin’s livestream account, in the swap Mr Trump said the election was stolen.

“Yes,” Mr. McLaughlin said to the president. “I said it on Hannity radio yesterday.”

“Keep saying it,” Mr. Trump replied.

Mr McLaughlin continued during the podcast: “This election was easily stolen, and these combo boxes and the Dominion Systems – their voting system – are absolutely criminals.”

allegations about Dominion Voting Systems have been refuted and internal republican notes It showed that officials in Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign knew the allegations were false. later domination filed a series of lawsuits against the people and media companies who are forcing conspiracies.

Representatives for Mr. Hannity, Mr. McLaughlin and Mr. Beck did not comment on the findings when reached.

Apples podcast guidelines He said the company doesn’t allow podcasts that “could have harmful or dangerous consequences.” Apple declined to comment.

Spotify did not immediately comment on the research.

The lack of control over podcast apps is particularly complicated for Google and Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube. video streaming site cracked election fraud related videos, conspiracy theory QAnon, and vaccine misinformationrequests removal of some podcast episodes hosted there. However, the same episodes remained available in Google’s Podcasts app. Mr. Bannon’s program has been removed from YouTube shortly after 6 January, however, the podcast remains available in Google’s Podcasts app.

Google argued that the Podcast app is more like a search engine than a streaming service because no audio is hosted by the company. Google spokesperson Farshad Shadloo said the app “crawls and indexes audio content” hosted elsewhere and has “policies against recommending podcasts that contain harmful misinformation, including misinformation about the 2020 US election.”