- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
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- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
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- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
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Recycled 'zombie' misinformation targets US voters
Migrants, vaccines, pedophilia rings -- old conspiracy theories are resurfacing ahead of the US election despite being repeatedly debunked, in what researchers call "zombie" falsehoods that appear to resonate with polarized voters.
Americans are deluged with misinformation about political hot-button issues that observers say have the potential to sway voters in the widely anticipated rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump in November.
That includes misinformation that is recycled online despite being repeatedly knocked down by fact-checkers in what seems like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.
The trend illustrates the ability of long-debunked falsehoods to mutate into viral political discourse on social media platforms, which now offer fewer guardrails as they scale back content moderation.
"This type of misinformation gets repeated so often that it eventually becomes the gospel truth to believers," Mike Rothschild, an expert on conspiracy theories, told AFP.
"The same tropes get recycled over and over and they work because they're always going to appeal to a certain type of person" in a polarized environment, he added.
That includes a surge of false claims -- inspired by record crossings along the US-Mexico border -- that Democrats are recruiting migrants to sway the presidential election in favor of Biden.
Among the key misinformation spreaders is Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly Twitter, who claimed ahead of primaries in swing states such as Arizona that the government was "importing voters" by welcoming unvetted illegal immigrants.
AFP's fact-checkers debunked the narrative, noting that migrants admitted on a temporary basis undergo background checks and have no direct path to citizenship or voting rights.
But the claim -- which echoes years-old false narratives from Trump and other US conservatives that seek to demonize migrants -- still received renewed traction, amassing hundreds of thousands of posts and comments across platforms.
- 'Lot of popularity' -
Republican politicians have made immigration a top issue in swing states such as New Hampshire, even as political observers say their claims are not always backed up by facts.
Some 43 percent of residents said illegal immigration is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" issue in the state, according to a recent poll by the University of New Hampshire.
In recent weeks, AFP has also debunked numerous claims that vaccines are harmful or ineffective, a narrative that has surged since the Covid-19 pandemic despite being repeatedly swatted down.
The deluge comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a longtime vaccine skeptic whose nonprofit raised millions of dollars during the pandemic, makes political inroads in some states as a challenger to Biden and Trump
In part due to the spread of recycled falsehoods, the anti-vaccine community "is in a stronger and better place than it was pre-pandemic," said Kolina Koltai, a senior researcher at the digital investigative group Bellingcat.
"RFK is gaining a lot of popularity and running as an independent," she said. "He's a very well-known anti-vaxxer. That's not nothing."
Distrust in the government is one reason why zombie claims continue to spread, analysts say -- a trend exemplified by the staying power of the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory.
The theory, which falsely linked a pizza restaurant in the US capital to an underground child sex trafficking ring involving high-ranking Democrats, has been thoroughly debunked since 2016.
Yet it later grew into the sprawling QAnon conspiracy movement, which gained popularity ahead of the 2020 election. Social media users, including Musk, have repeatedly revived the unfounded allegations in recent months.
- 'Cognitive bias' -
Sensational claims that prey on people's innate fears are always going to be fodder for misinformation, experts say.
"Debunking such claims has relatively low impact since people and institutions who do the debunking are considered part of the corrupt system or 'establishment' in the eyes of the people who believe" them, Mert Bayar, from the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, told AFP.
Baseless claims that the 2020 election was ridden with fraud and stolen from Trump still resurface online –- despite being thoroughly debunked by fact-checkers, government officials and audits.
Some of the recycled misinformation goes unchallenged as platforms such as X reduce content moderation in a climate of cost-cutting that has gutted trust and safety teams.
Analysts say misinformation purveyors have a financial motive to continue posting, as X's ad revenue-sharing program incentivizes extreme content designed to boost engagement.
Influencers also tend to reinforce their followers' beliefs.
"This can often be attributed to a cognitive bias known as confirmation bias," Bayar said.
"Content creators might have financial incentives or personal reasons for recycling such claims, but many of the people who spread such claims also genuinely believe in them."
O.Salvador--PC