'Wake-up call': Iowa caucus disinformation serves as warning about 2020 election

The specificity of both platforms' rules around disinformation leave room for known disinformation agents to work during elections, said Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. The voter fraud claim was a "classic disinformation tactic," she said, known as "trading up the chain," where false stories are repackaged by blogs and shared. Donovan said that while the specific intent of the disinformation — to disrupt the caucuses or sow larger distrust in the national viewing audience — may have been unclear, the goal of attaining mainstream media attention was met. "The fact that a known disinformation operation, like The Epoch Times, enjoyed hyper-engagement on Facebook shows that Facebook has not been able to stop the weaponization of their product by those with some well-placed resources," Donovan said.