Viral Election Misinformation: A review of fabrications, manipulations and tricks of context

Grades: 7-9, 10-12+

Type: Classroom Activities

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Viral misinformation can influence people’s ideas, beliefs and decisions about a wide variety of topics, but few are as consequential as elections. Malicious actors employ a range of approaches and tactics to try to affect people’s views about candidates, a particular political party, or about the security and legitimacy of the voting process itself.

This recap of six viral falsehoods about the 2024 U.S. presidential election candidates teaches students about three different types of misinformation: fabricated content, manipulated content and tricks of context. Each of these types involves slightly different tactics used to deceive people into believing false or misleading claims.

Fabricated content is misinformation that is entirely made up — and includes evidence-free claims, fake social media posts and content generated by artificial intelligence tools.

Manipulated content is misinformation in which something is altered from the original, such as images or videos that have had elements added, removed or replaced.

Tricks of context are also often used to create misinformation — by taking an image, quote, video clip or other piece of content out of its original context in ways that change its meaning. One of the most popular tricks of context is the practice of taking a genuine piece of content — such as an image or video clip — and presenting it in an entirely new, false context.

This slide-driven classroom activity is a collaboration between the News Literacy Project and Logically Facts, a technology company based in the UK that specializes in analyzing and fighting disinformation.