The promotion of baseless election-related conspiracy theories, in what has been dubbed the rise of the so-called BlueAnon movement, mimics in many ways the rise of the Stop the Steal movement in the wake of the 2020 US presidential election. Just like now, those conspiracy theories began as vague claims of election fraud before morphing into very specific and increasingly unhinged narratives about voting machines, military satellites, and all-powerful figures working with the winning campaign. What began as vague, amorphous claims that “something doesn’t add up” in the hours after president-elect Donald Trump won the election last week have now crystallized into an evolving conspiracy theory involving Musk and Starlink.

"Similar to the general claims we've seen from the left baselessly speculating that the election was rigged for Trump, the surge in posts about Starlink appears to have been partly driven by relatively obscure accounts that often share little to no identifying information,” says Sam Howard, politics editor with media monitoring group NewsGuard. “I'm not aware of any federal-level Democratic officeholders or officials who have pushed this to date.”

Harris and her campaign have never once suggested the election results are anything but what was reported, and in her concession speech last week Harris urged her supporters to accept the outcome.

Disinformation researchers are still unsure whether this trend will continue to grow into a significant movement, akin to Stop the Steal, or fizzle out without support from major figures within the Democratic party. But some believe the movement could continue to grow thanks to influencers seeking to gain clout.

“There are incentives for people to do this,” says Elise Thomas, a senior open source analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. “It feels really good to get all of those likes. If they're getting, you know, 100,000 likes, 500,000 likes for these tweets, they're going to keep doing it, and they're going to come up with new twists on the narrative, and new explanations. That's exactly what we saw happening on the right.”

It took just minutes after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the election for conspiracy theories about the results to flood social media platforms. Research company PeakMetrics tracked a million posts on November 6 on X related to vague claims like “something doesn’t add up” along with hashtags like “#Recount2024“ and “#DontConcedeKamala.”

Eighteen percent of these posts were made by inauthentic accounts, according to an analysis shared with WIRED by researchers from Cyabra, a real-time AI disinformation detection tool. However, when the researchers checked again this week, they found that while the proportion of inauthentic accounts had dropped significantly—6 percent—the conspiracy continued to grow.

“Despite this decline, the conspiracy’s momentum persists, driven increasingly by a blend of real influencers and unwitting participants,” the Cyabra researchers wrote.

PeakMetrics recorded a 2,200 percent rise in the number of posts mentioning Starlink and the election or voting between Saturday and Sunday last, with posts about the Starlink conspiracy theory surpassing posts using the #Recount2024 hashtag on X on Monday.

A NewsGuard analysis shared with WIRED found there were 281,644 mentions of Starlink on X on November 10, compared to a daily average of 40,100 mentions a day from November 5 to November 9.

The conspiracy theory took hold after it was discovered that Starlink was used at some polling locations to improve connectivity—not for voting machines, but for voter check-in. The false claims have been repeatedly debunked by fact-checking organizations, and election officials have reiterated that voting machines are not connected to the internet.

Starlink did not respond to a request for comment.

This conspiracy theory has continued to spread, and it's not limited to X: Discussion threads on Reddit, posts on Instagram and Threads, and dozens of Facebook posts all push the narrative that Musk colluded with Trump to use his Starlink satellites to steal the election.

One of the most active platforms for these conspiracy theories is TikTok. WIRED has reviewed dozens of videos posted on the platform by users either repeating the claim about Musk and Starlink or adding new twists to the conspiracy theory.

X, Meta, Reddit, and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

One of the most popular new aspects of the theory relates to the fact that Starlink satellites were observed burning up over the US last weekend, which those pushing the conspiracy theory claim is evidence of Musk attempting to cover his tracks. The reality is that Starlink satellites are designed to burn up on reentry at the end of their lifespan.

>>1362701
You already posted this here days ago, and it wasn't new then.

Other conspiracy theorists claimed Trump spoke about “a little secret” he made onstage that he had with Musk, referencing a comment he made during his Madison Square Garden rally last month. In fact, the comment was directed at House speaker Mike Johnson. Some left-leaning accounts have also pointed to podcaster Joe Rogan’s comments this week that Musk had developed a bespoke app to give him early access to election results.

“Apparently Elon created an app and he knew who won the election four hours before the results,” Rogan said. “So as the results are coming in, four hours before they called it, Dana White told me Elon said, ‘I’m leaving. It’s over. Donald won.’” It’s unclear how this app worked or what data it used.

Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that oversees the US elections, said in a November 6 statement that there was “no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

While some right-wing figures are continuing to push election conspiracy theories, the vast majority have fallen silent in the wake of Trump’s win, abandoning overnight four years worth of nonstop posting and shouting about election fraud.

And while the left-wing election conspiracies are nowhere near the scale that the Stop the Steal movement was just weeks ago, some experts are still concerned.

“I've seen some comparisons to Stop the Steal and some of these other right-wing conspiracy election theories, and it is smaller than those, as they were at the end of the Trump presidency,” says Thomas. “But I think the significant difference there is that they came after months, if not years, of deliberate agitation and cultivation by a variety of actors. So, for me, to see these left-wing election fraud conspiracy theories getting pretty significant traction quickly, I think, personally, is quite concerning.”

>>1362707
no, I did not post this. And it was posted on the 14th, today is the 16th, so its within the 2 day rule.

you are free to seethe and cope though.

>>1362709
>posted
reported, I mean

>>1362709
No one believes you. Here's your previous thread.
>>1361873

>>1362712
>>1362712
well, I guess we can just all agree that you're crazy, then

>>1362714
>we
No one who is from here would use this word.

>>1362701
>this board has seen a 40% downturn in traffic shortly after the Harris campaignbux dried up
Lol it was apparent af as soon as all the inorganic left wing bot posting stopped suddenly. Nice to see exactly how much propaganda they were posting get quantified.

>>1362701
Really tho holy shit, there was 75% more traffic than what were have right now from all the leftwing bots leading up to the election, fuck...

>>1362729
>>1362730
How do you people exist being this paranoid?

>>1362734
Those numbers are reality. They speak for themselves.

Dr Evil aka Musk used his Starlink satellites in cahoots with The Russians and Chhhyna to dissappear Dem votes. Foreign agents planted special pens that were equipped with 2 kinds of ink and when Harris was written, the disappearing kind was swapped. Electronic pens were even easier to rig.

>>1362745
Are the leftwing bots in the room now?

>>1362747
And how did muskrat identify these dem votes?

Think about how long it's been default for *web sites* to transport data server client encrypted. You're seriously telling me you expect the machines tallying votes for a national election phoned home via plaintext? Or you trying to say musk had the keys?

He has incentive, I'll grant. But as the cambridge analytica fiasco proved, he can do more with tw@r.

Beyond assuring your economic suicide, what feasible reasons would china and russia have for wanting trump in power?
How did they get the encryption keys required to pull off such an attack?

Demonstrate how the attack is plausible.

How the fuck would ink know what's written? Factor in fo everyone's subtle changes in writing - both the way everyone writes differently, and the way you can write your name 20x in a row and no 2 will match. Also, you'd only know what's written *after* it's been written. Just think about this for a second.

Do the maffs and come at me with something credible.

>>1362734
In constant phear of that which they do not understand (anything more complex than a toaster).

If the ISP can interfere with the tally sent by a voting machine, then you have bigger problems than Elon Musk

>>1362759
Don't let elon's ego hear you say that...

>>1362753
pens are electronic ans when Harris was written, nothing happened, as to the disappearing ink, i was kidding

>>1362701
The only thing I am 100% sure, left and right bullshit is practical division, yet, all of that bullshittery have one thing in common, they want the truth and justice. The reason why both sides can't reach the truth is because both sides are manipulated to fight with each others. Shame.

>>1362749
Not according to the chart in OP, no.

>>1362768
It's because there are no leftwing bots.

>>1362778
I agree, they disappeared after the election. It was quite discussed on this board afterwards as people noticed the immediate drop in low quality leftwing posts

>>1362778
And there is no war in Ba Sing Se

>>1362779
There never were any leftwing bots. You think reporting news stories about Trump makes you a left wing bot.
>>1362782
Do you think a war is being fought on 4chan?

>>1362783
How are you this stupid?

>>1362784
>the guy who thinks the 2020 election was stolen from Trump is calling other people stupid again
You people are a self-parody.

>>1362785
Do you have a better explanation for where 15 million Dem voters magically went?

>>1362786
They stayed home and didn't vote this time because both candidates were horrible.

>>1362787
Thats a funny way of saying "they don't actually exist and only manifested in 2020 under strange circumstances"

Also why are you arguing? You lost. History will not reflect your view.

>>1362788
Your headcanon isn't real though.

>>1362789
What headcannon? Trump won, your side lost because you couldn't cheat.

>>1362790
>Trump won, your side lost because you couldn't cheat.
That's your headcanon.

>>1362791
Thats not headcannon. Thats factual reality. You couldn't pad your vote count with 15 million illegitimate votes so you lost. If this wasn't true, you wouldn't have lost.

>>1362701
Only liberals can be that stupid believing in such crackpot theories. It is beyond obvious that God himself made sure the election went the right way.

>>1362792
>>1362793
>it was real in my mind!
The absolute state of Republicans

>>1362701
>Left wing folk over in America are claiming that Elon Musk used satellites to hijack the election
>what right wing folk were claiming four years ago
Unless you admit that Biden's election was legitimate, what makes you rightards think your opinions have the right to be listened to?

>>1362783
>There never were any leftwing bots
Ok, "paid shill", whatever.
The Harris campaign spent over $1,000,000,000 on manipulating social media and releasing junk polls. I'm quite certain 4chans most left leaning boards were not forgotten in her historic spending spree

>>1362793
>It is beyond obvious that God himself made sure the election went the right way
The 2024 trump campaign was amazing when you think about it from a high level.
His debate against Biden was probably the most pivotal debate since Nixon/JFK debate, maybe even more pivotal, as Biden lost so horribly bad he gave up the election *after* everyone voted for him in primaries.
Trump survived two assassination attempts, one of which caused probably what will be known as one of the most iconic photos ever in US political history.
And then as for the election itself, we were assured by floods of what we now understand were democrat "junk polls" that the race was "super close, trust me" with Harris in the lead, and it ended up being a clean sweep across the board with trump winning every single swing state and gop taking majority in every chamber

>>1362762
>electronic ans
>ans
turn your electronic monitor on

She is just as retarded as the people claiming Biden's election was illegitimate. The reason why different parties win is because things change. It's as simple as that. Kamala lost because she is unlikable, and the extremist left wingers demotivated the normal lefters from even bothering with the election due to the absolute retardation there was.

Turns out that insulting and dehumanizing your own voters doesn't really help you win an election. Turns out only having 2 weeks to prepare is retarded. Also turns out that your stance basically being "I'm Trump but I'm not Trump" while trying to appeal to republicans doesn't work.

op is a faggot

>>1362813
pens are electronic and when "Harris" was written, or the box beside her name was checked nothing happened. Musk and Putin and Xi used their best elite hackers to infiltrate the ballot software.

>>1362827
This is true and ballot software hacking is true. Both are not mutually exclusive. But I'm glad to see that your gaydar is working.

>>1362827
Why

>>1362701

>including X, Reddit, Threads, Facebook, and Instagram, where it has racked up millions of views.

X? The same platform that Elon owns? How ironic

What is his motivation on Twitter again?

>>1362961
>What is his motivation on Twitter again
Free speech

>>1362964
>Free speech
Except for those who criticize Elongated Muskrat
Free Speech for me, but not for thee.

>>1362974
You've been brain damaged from your habitual fart huffing