Name: A man wearing a buffalo cap proves how far mis/disinformation can go and how dangerous it can be
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A man wearing a buffalo cap proves how far mis/disinformation can go and how dangerous it can be

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Jake Angeli stood bare-chested, wearing his trademark buffalo cap and holding an American flag, among a group of other men who stormed the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday afternoon. The well-known QAnon evangelist’s presence in such a moment was considered by some fact-checkers and researchers as the culmination of the impact of mis- and disinformation on American politics. Angeli has mostly been active in Arizona. In 2019, he was seen outside the state Capitol building shouting dozens of conspiracy theories. According to , he carried a sign that read “Q sent me” and kept repeating that “Q was a government agent who wanted to ‘take the country back’ from pedophiles and globalists”. In May, he was interviewed by , in Phoenix, and showed his support for the way President Donald Trump has been handling the pandemic. &nbsp;&nbsp; “His response in creating some sort of press briefing every single day to help reassure Americans is a good thing, because I think people are worried a little more than they should be,” Angeli said. “If we look at the numbers and projections pushed by the media relative to what the numbers actually turned out to be then we see that there’s been a lot of hysteria that was completely unnecessary and it was put in there by the mainstream press.” A month ago, Angeli launched an online crowdfunding campaign so he could participate in more pro-Trump events. His goal was to raise $800 “to help pay for a rental car, gas, lodging, and other expenses to make the trip to Washington D.C and back to Arizona for the MAGA Million March on Dec-12th-2020.” Angeli, however, only managed to receive a single donation of $50&nbsp; and there is no public sign he started a new campaign to get funding for today’s event on Capitol Hill. Somehow, however, he managed to be there — and showed that mis/disinformers can go really, really far. “You’re seeing the complete collapse of reality,” said Christopher Guess, lead technologist at the , when asked if the Capitol breach had any connections with misinformation. “You’ve got people arguing for a worldview that Joe Biden is not the president.” U.S fact-checkers have debunked dozens of posts regarding what Trump calls a fraudulent election. PolitiFact, for example, published on Nov. 18 a round-up article with some of them. “Since Election Day, PolitiFact more than 80 misleading or false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election,” wrote the reporter Daniel Funke. Many of those false claims were being repeated on social media and reposted by Trump. At 4:17 p.m., the president released a video on Twitter trying to quell the riots breaking out at the Capitol, but still claimed the election had been stolen and he had won by a landslide.&nbsp; Fact-checkers and election officials in multiple states have debunked both claims. A few minutes later, the content was flagged by Twitter as “disputed” and couldn’t be liked and/or retweeted “due to the risk of violence” it could promote. But that might not have been enough. Maarten Schenk, co-founder of the U.S fact-checking organization Lead Stories, drew a direct line between Trump’s earlier speech on the Ellipse just south of the White House and the Capitol protests. “It just felt like a long list of election hoaxes that he was reading, and no one in the crowd batted an eye at it,” he said. Schenk referenced the debunked and the hoax about in Georgia as just a couple of the falsehoods Trump mentioned. “Either these people didn’t believe the fact checks, or they never heard of them,” he said. Baybars Örsek, the International Fact-Checking Network’s director, saw a clear connection between the events in Washington and the spread of mis/disinformation. In a posted around 5 p.m., he wrote: “This is not the first time in the world where masses obstruct a democratic process during a transfer of power but might be the first one fueled by conspiracy theories on such a scale.” Örsek’s said it’s time for reflection. “*We* all will need to reflect on this and take our lessons, otherwise, it will be too late.” Guess said Wednesday’s breach of the U.S. Capitol is the price of ignoring harmful disinformation. He referenced the Nov. 2020 where an anonymous GOP official was quoted asking, “What’s the downside of humoring him?” in reference to the president’s debunked conspiracy theories. “This is the harm,” Guess said. “Fact-checkers are working as hard as they can, but it’s an impossible battle when conspiracies are being reinforced with someone that has the cultural penetration like the president of the United States has.”Support high-integrity, independent journalism that serves democracy. Make a gift to Poynter today. The Poynter Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, and your gift helps us make good journalism better.Tags: ,The New York Times bought The Athletic for $550 million in January and is looking for a return on its hefty investment.The NYT reporter's book includes an eyebrow-raising quote from Trump about not leaving the White House. Should she have shared it sooner?Plus, new college rankings reignite fights over who’s in and who’s out, some states will tax student loan forgiveness, and more.Queen Elizabeth II died at age 96 on Sept. 8, but rumors that it was because of a COVID-19 vaccine are unfounded.A sense of national unity seems like an impossible dream in 2022.Comments are closed.Start your day informed and inspired.Get the Poynter newsletter that's right for you.

Jake Angeli stood bare-chested, wearing his trademark buffalo cap and holding an American flag, among a group of other men who stormed the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday afternoon. The well-known QAnon evangelist’s presence in such a moment was considered by some fact-checkers and researchers as the culmination of the impact of mis- and disinformation on American politics. Angeli has mostly been active in Arizona. In 2019, he was seen outside the state Capitol building shouting dozens of conspiracy theories. According to , he carried a sign that read “Q sent me” and kept repeating that “Q...

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Cristina Tardáguila is the International Fact-Checking Network’s Associate Director. She was born in May 1980, in Brazil, and has lived in Rio de Janeiro for most of her life. Since 2014, Tardáguila has dedicated her professional life to verification. She is the founder of Agência Lupa, the first fact-checking initiative in her country, and also responsible for LupaEducação, its educational branch.

https://www.poynter.org/author/ctardaguila/

Cristina Tardáguila

School for journalism and democracy, with tweets by @itsren, @kristenhare, @TomWJones and @angelanfu. Contact: info@poynter.org / 727-821-9494

A man wearing a buffalo cap proves how far mis/disinformation can go and how dangerous it can be

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