In 2016, Black voters in Ohio were among those most targeted for digital-media misinformation. Often, the goal wasn鈥檛 so much to sway their votes as to ensure they wouldn鈥檛 vote at all.
Ohio voting advocates are concerned the same type of campaign is in play this year 鈥� but many are going on offense instead.
One of the most high-profile campaigns is 鈥�,鈥� spearheaded by LeBron James and other athletes this summer.
鈥淲e need you to join us to vote like our lives depend on it," James underscores in a video encouraging people to vote, "because they do.鈥� Another video recruits young people to be poll workers, while another talks about legacy.
But such efforts are running up against powerful counter-messaging: that Black votes don鈥檛 matter because neither Democrats nor Republicans really care.
Curtis Maples, a member of the board of the , says that counter-messaging works because it鈥檚 layered onto a reality that Black interests often have been discounted by people in power.
鈥淵ou can use the logical fallacy of suggesting, well, since racism is still here and you鈥檝e been voting Democrat all this long time, therefore the Democrats have done nothing for you," says Maples, who is Black. "In reality, it鈥檚 far more complicated than that. But it鈥檚 enough for a tweet or a meme."
Maples has spent a lot of time studying the tools used for more than a century to keep African Americans from voting. Many are neither new nor subtle: poll taxes, literacy laws, voting prohibitions against former felons, laws to scale back the early, in-person voting that Black voters embrace.
But Maples said social media has offered a suppression tool that is personal, massive and extra-ordinarily hard to track.
鈥淲ith the advent of technology and social media, lies travel faster than the truth,鈥� Maples says.
Young Mie Kim, who specializes in the study of digital media and politics at the University of Wisconsin, notes that lies rarely sway a voter to support another candidate. But they鈥檙e great at sowing confusion and apathy with messages 鈥渢argeting African Americans, like 鈥楴either candidate serves African-American communities, so your vote is not going to count anyway.鈥欌��
She said Russian intelligence was an early adopter of the tactic, but it isn鈥檛 alone. And last month, the British public television station Channel 4 how deep a root it took in 2016.
鈥淲hat we found is that in those crucial swing states, Black voters were disproportionately marked for deterrence,鈥� Channel 4 repor