Disinformation, Hyper-Partisan Media, and the Perils of Big Tech

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana [Bash],” Republican vice-presidential candidate and senator from Ohio J.D. Vance explained during a September 15 CNN appearance. Vance was responding to Bash’s questions about reports indicating that both he and Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump claimed Haitian immigrants had flooded Springfield, Ohio, and were allegedly eating residents’ pets.

After weeks of criticism about the dearth of evidence regarding the claim, Vance doubled down and invoked a relativist perspective of truth, arguing that the media needed to listen as Ohio “people speak their truth.”  On some level, Vance’s admission might be commendable, as he is one of the few politicians to openly confess fabricating information. However, his statement also reveals that truth is not a priority for many in the political class, or their enablers in the hyper-partisan corporate news media and Big Tech social media platforms. As significant as Vance’s admission is, the false story and “sorry-not sorry” reaction to it are unfortunately typical in America’s hyper-partisan media landscape.

Fake news or disinformation refers to false, misleading, or baseless stories presented as legitimate journalism. While fake news can be harmless or even humorous, as seen in segments of shows like The Daily Show, once it is accepted as fact, it becomes extremely dangerous. Fake news can drive otherwise good people to commit terrible acts. For example, Ashley Babbitt was misled into believing she was defending democracy — a noble cause — when fake news convinced her that the 2020 election had been stolen. Babbitt illegally stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and lost her life. Had the story been true, Babbitt might have been hailed as a hero. Instead, she was tragically deceived into giving her life while attempting to overturn a legitimate election.

A similar pattern is unfolding in Springfield, where the racist trope of immigrants, specifically Haitians, as savages eating pets has incited some believers to retaliate with bomb threats targeting schools and hospitals. This has caused widespread trauma, confusion, and fear, leading to increased policing. Both the governor of Ohio and mayor of Springfield have pleaded with the Trump campaign to retract these claims. Meanwhile, a Haitian non-profit group has filed criminal charges against Trump and Vance for repeating the baseless claim. Their pleas are informed by the experiences of numerous Haitian immigrants in Springfield who now fear leaving their homes due to the threats. One might think Trump would empathize with these concerns, especially considering that hyper-polarized rhetoric — much of which Trump has fueled since the 1990s — has led to acts of political violence, including two recent assassination attempts against him.

While some media outlets, particularly those aligned with the Democratic Party, have rightly denounced the false story, the same cannot be said for conservative news outlets. For instance, OAN amplified the false claim the night before the debate, publishing a story titled “Report: Ohio Town Residents Claim Haitian Migrants Are ‘Decapitating and Eating Ducks in the Park.’” Similarly, after the September 2024 presidential debate, which saw Trump introduce the baseless story about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio, Fox News Channel seemed more focused on the politics of the situation than the veracity of the claim. Instead of debunking the claim outright, Fox News asked a focus group of potential voters how they felt about Trump’s statements regarding immigrants eating pets. Presenting clearly false stories as legitimate reports is a common practice in hyper-partisan media.

Let’s not forget that recently released text messages revealed Fox News knew the 2020 election was not stolen, but continued to host guests who claimed it was because their hyper-conservative audience wanted to believe it. In fact, such mendacity cost Fox a $787 million settlement in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case. This outcome suggests that extravagant payouts for lying are somehow worth it to the corporate media. And let’s also recall the serial fabulist and former GOP Congressman George Santos: someone who should be a poster child for how normalization of such prevarication in politics is harmful to the public and to democracy, not a hero to emulate. Even he was eventually booted from Congress, yet such brazen lying among media elites and politicians, like Trump and Vance, persists.

Big Tech share some of the blame as well. While it should not be their responsibility to censor content, they have designed platforms that, as researchers have shown, amplify false information and suppress the truth. One of the early social media users who spread the false claim about immigrants eating pets has since admitted that the story was a fabrication and has begged for forgiveness. She too acknowledges that the story spread much further and faster than she ever anticipated. Reflecting on how her post reached national prominence and caught the attention of a leading presidential candidate, she said, “It just exploded.”

As Jonathan Swift once quipped in 1710, “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.” With our vast commutations technology today, such sentiment is an understatement and illustrates why we must stand against the spread of false information as we hold accountable political opportunists who weaponize it. While Vance’s admission of falsehood might be commendable in one sense, it also underscores that truth is not a priority for him or the broader political class. This is equally true for their enablers in hyper-partisan corporate media and Big Tech. Unfortunately, as important as it may be that Vance said the quiet part out loud, such deceit and cynical reactions to it still occur daily in America’s hyper-partisan media landscape.

Header photos by Gage Skidmore and Cindy Funk on flickr.