Associate Professor of Journalism Amanda Sturgill was featured in a recent report by Newsy about misinformation surrounding the Georgia Senate runoff races and how social media companies are working to combat it.
As millions of voters cast their ballots in a pair of U.S. Senate runoff races in Georgia, they did so amid a constant flow of misinformation surrounding the 2020 election season. To get to the bottom of misinformation tactics related to the races, Newsy tapped Associate Professor of Journalism Amanda Sturgill for insight on the matter.
In the report, “Georgia Senate runoffs awash with election misinformation,” reporter Tyler Adkisson highlights efforts to misinform voters via posts on a variety of social media platforms. The article also discusses efforts by platforms like Facebook and Twitter to debunk misinformation published on their sites, although as Sturgill states, that can be a difficult task.
“There’s going to be too many efforts to spread bad information to have technical solutions that work well and work consistently,” Sturgill told Newsy. “Those first impressions that they get, they kind of tend to stick, so even if it’s something that gets sent and you see it one time and it turns out to later be proven false, you may not see the debunking later that will happen.”
Sturgill also discussed the potential future impacts of election misinformation in the Georgia runoffs and the 2020 presidential election. For more of Sturgill’s insights, watch the entire Newsy report here.