Americans: If anybody is telling you not to vote or to not vote Democrat on tumblr in the next few weeks, just assume they’re bots trying to throw the election.
register to vote
I remember I made a Go Vote! post during the last election, and it had about a thousand comments from well-established blogs telling me my post was “stupid centrist bullshit” or “the typical Democrat response - you can’t fight fascism just by voting.” When the list of Russian bots was revealed, I discovered 90%+ of those comments were from election interference bots. They looked and spoke like real users and made compelling points, but they were trying to ensure the far-right would take the election.
The chances are fairly high that tumblr will again be infiltrated by people trying to throw the election. I’m sure this time it will look like a lot of “I went and voted but we still got Biden” or “Biden secretly changed the student debt relief plan! He’s no better than the GOP!” (incidentally: this is not true, or at least it’s a VERY poor framing of what happened).
Even if the person saying that kind of stuff isn’t a bot, they may be consuming and spreading interference propaganda.
Stay vigilant, check sources, don’t believe the framing of issues by random tumblr blogs, and again: register to vote
anyone who tries to tell you that voting is pointless is TRYING TO SUPPRESS YOUR VOTE
The worst people you know are definitely going to vote so you should too.
Adding my local councils strategy to increase voter engagement this cycle, just as a visual reminder.
