31 Sam Levin, “Millionaire Tells Millennials: If You Want a House, Stop Buying Avocado Toast,” Guardian, May 15, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/may/15/australian-millionaire-millennials-avocado-toast-house.

32 Renée DiResta, “It’s Not Misinformation. It’s Amplified Propaganda,” The Atlantic, October 9, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/disinformation-propaganda-amplification-ampliganda/620334.

33 Shahid Buttar (@ShahidForChange), “Why do you think #PelosiMustGo?,” Twitter, July 12, 2020, 11:59 a.m., Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/web/20200712201533/https://twitter.com/ShahidForChange/status/1282389059768213504.

34 Emily Zanotti, “‘Pelosi Must Go’: Speaker Blasted from the Left over ‘Corporate Interests,’” Daily Wire, July 14, 2020, https://www.dailywire.com/news/pelosi-must-go-speaker-blasted-from-the-left-over-corporate-interests.

35 Chris Bail, Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021), 31–32.

36 Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer, The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities for Personal and Collective Success (New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2021), 29.

37 Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: Science and Practice, 5th ed. (1984; reis., Boston: Pearson, 2009), 99.

38 Cass R. Sunstein, “The Law of Group Polarization,” Journal of Political Philosophy 10, no. 2 (2002): 175–195.

39 Todd Rose, Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions (New York: Hachette, 2022), 39–42.

40 Van Bavel and Packer, The Power of Us, 77.

41 Ibid., 170–171.

42 Steve Rathje, Jay J. Van Bavel, and Sander van der Linden, “Out-Group Animosity Drives Engagement on Social Media,” PNAS 118, no. 26 (2021), https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024292118.

43 Freddie deBoer, “The YIMBYs and Social Capture,” FdB, Substack, February 27, 2023, https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-yimby-movement-demonstrates-social.

44 Sandra González‐Bailón and Yphtach Lelkes, “Do Social Media Undermine Social Cohesion? A Critical Review,” Social Issues and Policy Review 17, no. 1 (January 2023): 155–180, https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12091.

45 Thanks to Gary Zhexi Zhang for the metaphor.

46 Helen C. Harton, Matthew Gunderson, and Martin J. Bourgeois, “‘I’ll Be There with You’: Social Influence and Cultural Emergence at the Capitol on January 6,” Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 26, no. 3 (2022): 220–238, https://doi.org/10.1037/gdn0000185.

47 Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York: Perennial Library, 1989), preface.

48 Ibid., 91.

49 Clay Shirky, “A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy,” in The Best Software Writing I, ed. Joel Spolsky (Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2005), 183–209, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-0038-3_23.

50 J. M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, “The ISIS Twitter Census: Defining and Describing the Population of ISIS Supporters on Twitter,” Brookings, March 5, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-isis-twitter-census-defining-and-describing-the-population-of-isis-supporters-on-twitter.

51 “We consider a particular role to be influential in the spread of information, when a link posted by that role induces an account in another role to post the same link with high probability. We find that for information originating from extremist sources, educators and solicitors are the most influential in triggering other roles to also spread such content. Whereas, motivators influence other roles spreading biased news, flamers are influential in the spread of fake news.” See Shruti Phadke and Tanushree Mitra, “Educators, Solicitors, Flamers, Motivators, Sympathizers: Characterizing Roles in Online Extremist Movements,” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5, no. CSCW2 (2021): 1–35.

52 Hoffer, The True Believer, 130–140.

53 Ibid., 114.

54 Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 29.

55 Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas, xxiii.

56 Aidan Walker, “What’s the Deal with ‘Stonks’?,” Know Your Meme, 2022, https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/whats-the-deal-with-stonks.

57 “Elon Musk Charged with Securities Fraud for Misleading Tweets,” US Securities and Exchange Commission, September 27, 2018, https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219.

58 Allison Morrow, “Elon Musk Tweet Fuels Frenzied GameStop Surge,” CNN Business, January 28, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/26/investing/gamestop-stock-elon-musk-reddit/index.html.

59 Steve Goldstein, “GameStop Stock Hits as High as $500 in Premarket Action,” MarketWatch, January 28, 2021, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gamestop-stock-hits-as-high-as-500-in-premarket-action-2021-01-28.

60 Emily Stewart and Rani Molla, “Robinhood, and Its Role in the GameStop Saga, Explained,” Vox, January 30, 2021, https://www.vox.com/recode/22254270/robinhood-gamestop-amc-block-wallstreetbets-day-trading.

61 Matt Levine, “The GameStop Game Never Stops,” Bloomberg, January 25, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-25/the-game-never-stops.

62 Robert J. Shiller, Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 273–274.

63 DiResta, “It’s Not Misinformation.”

CHAPTER 5: BUILDING THE BIG LIE

1 Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, “#StopTheSteal: Timeline of Social Media and Extremist Activities Leading to 1/6 Insurrection,” Just Security, May 18, 2021, https://www.justsecurity.org/74622/stopthesteal-timeline-of-social-media-and-extremist-activities-leading-to-1-6-insurrection.

2 Will Sommer, “How the Ilhan Omar Marriage Smear Went from an Anonymous Post on an Obscure Forum to Being Embraced by Trump,” Daily Beast, July 19, 2019, https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-ilhan-omar-marriage-smear-went-from-an-anonymous-post-on-an-obscure-forum-to-being-embraced-by-trump.

3 Paul Farhi, “John McCain Knew How to Make Journalists Love Him,” Washington Post, August 27, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/john-mccain-knew-how-to-make-journalists-love-him/2018/08/27/9b156f80-a9bc-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html.

4 Journalism and Media Staff, “McCain vs. Obama on the Web,” Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project, August 18, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2008/09/15/mccain-vs-obama-on-the-web.

5 Roger Sollenberger, “Right-Wing Trolls Launch Stop the Steal PAC to Cash In on Election Lies,” Salon, November 18, 2020, https://www.salon.com/2020/11/18/right-wing-trolls-launch-stop-the-steal-pac-to-cash-in-on-election-lies.

6 Rob Kuznia et al., “Stop the Steal’s Massive Disinformation Campaign Connected to Roger Stone,” CNN, November 14, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/business/stop-the-steal-disinformation-campaign-invs/index.html. Roger Stone is credited with first using the phrase “Stop the Steal” in 2016 in association with the Trump campaign as it anticipated a loss.

7 Zach Sweat, “Field Guide to Political Emojis,” Know Your Meme, April 12, 2023, https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/field-guide-to-political-emojis.

8 Nick Corasaniti, Sheera Frenkel, and Nicole Perlroth, “App Used to Tabulate Votes Is Said to Have Been Inadequately Tested,” New York Times, February 4, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/politics/iowa-caucus-app.html; “Nevada Hopes to Avoid Chaos of Iowa Caucuses as Bloomberg Tries to Recover,” NBC News, February 21, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/how-iowa-caucuses-fell-apart-tarnished-vote-n1140346.

9 “Bernie Sanders’ Supporters Shouldn’t Fall for Republicans’ Impeachment Conspiracy,” NBC News, January 16, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/bernie-sanders-supporters-shouldn-t-fall-republicans-impeachment-conspiracy-ncna1116576.

10 Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN), “This can’t be!,” Twitter, February 4, 2020, https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/status/1224575334248566784.

11 Renée DiResta, “The Conspiracies Are Coming from Inside the House,” The Atlantic, March 10, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/internet-conspiracies-are-coming-inside-country/607645.

12 “Online Conspiracy Theories Flourish After Iowa Caucus Fiasco,” AP News, May 1, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/iowa-elections-lindsey-graham-ia-state-wire-donald-trump-8ae0e5172130f81265172fbd3e65094a,%20; Ben Nimmo (@ebenimmo), “Looking into Twitter traffic…,” Twitter, February 5, 2020, https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/1224832953458614272.

13 Data compiled from the Stanford Internet Observatory, analyzed in DiResta, “The Conspiracies Are Coming from Inside the House”; trend additionally archived at “United States Trends | 04/02/2020,” (C) 2022, n.d., https://archive.twitter-trending.com/united-states/04‑02‑2020.

14 Elizabeth Bruenig (@ebruenig), “Clinton’s ’16 campaign manager…,” Twitter, February 4, 2020, Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/web/20200205111150/https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1224710768546996225.

15 Robby Mook (@RobbyMook), “Sorry, folks…,” Twitter, February 4, 2020, Internet Archive, https://web.archive.org/web/20221123092124/https://twitter.com/RobbyMook/status/1224555538790395904.

16 “Fact-Checking Trump’s Claim That Mail-In Ballots Lead to Voter Fraud,” NBC News, April 10, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-pushes-false-claims-about-mail-vote-fraud-here-are-n1180566.

17 “Report: Trump Commission Did Not Find Widespread Voter Fraud,” AP News, April 20, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-elections-f5f6a73b2af546ee97816bb35e82c18d; Michael Tackett and Michael Wines, “Trump Disbands Commission on Voter Fraud,” New York Times, January 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/us/politics/trump-voter-fraud-commission.html.

18 “Voters Line Up to Cast