Interference 2020

The disinformation is coming from inside the country

- Bob Moser

“How do you address the fears that the government is going to take away those assault rifles?” a reporter asked Beto O’Rourke on the Saturday morning before Labor Day, outside a campaign stop in Charlottesville, Virginia. O’Rourke was fielding questions about guns, which, after a mass shooting in his hometown of El Paso, had become central to his presidential bid. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” he replied.

That afternoon, back in West Texas, another gunman with another assault rifle embarked on a shooting spree, killing seven people and wounding twenty-five. Soon after the man’s name was reported, a suspicious-looking Twitter account added dramatic details to the emerging narrative: “The Odessa Shooter’s name is Seth Ator, a Democratic Socialist who had a Beto sticker on his truck.” Law enforcement officials quickly told reporters that there was no such sticker, and journalists discovered that Ator had been registered in Texas as an unaffiliated voter.