Left-wing social media users are using Meta Inc.'s “Twitter killer” social media app Threads to post conspiracy theories that claim President-elect Donald Trump has been declared the winner of a contest rife with cheating.
One conspiracy theory circulating on the left claims that Elon Musk, a prominent Trump supporter, used the Starlink internet satellite to hack voting machines and alter results.
“Are you kidding me?!?!” People are openly campaigning. [sic] I mean, one of the president’s political parties is providing internet connectivity to voting machines and saying, ‘He can hack everything,’ and this is nothing to worry about?!??!” one user wrote in the thread.
a Harris support poster on thread “Multiple sources reveal that Starlink was involved in counting votes. Starlink. Owned and controlled by Elon Musk, who worked for the Trump campaign. Hello? Who? but?”
A user with the handle alex.nick.jungle posted: “I love how no one in the press talks about Elon Musk rigging the election.”
another thread written by user: “Wow. Widespread voter fraud and evidence of votes being thrown away in trash cans and in the woods, mysterious disappearances and uncounted cases. This is about to get crazy.”
One commenter on the thread pointed out a discrepancy in the election results in North Carolina, where Democrat Josh Stein won the gubernatorial race by more than 800,000 votes, but where Trump defeated Kamala Harris. He defeated the vice president by less than 200,000 votes.
North Carolina's lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state elections were all won by Democrats.
Despite President Trump's victory in the Tar Heel State, Democrats' victory in the state's negative vote has fueled conspiracy theories online.
“Trump's vote share in North Carolina is based entirely on undervoting.” 1 thread user I wrote. “This doesn't make any sense!”
Another user in the thread wondered how Trump easily won Iowa, even though a recent poll by respected researcher Ann Selzer showed Harris leading by 3 points in the state. I couldn't understand.
“Ann Seltzer” [sic]the gold standard of pollsters said Kamara had a 3-point lead in Iowa and lost by 13 points? Strange things were happening everywhere.” wrote a Threads user.
Former Washington Post technology columnist Taylor Lorenz said: Reported in her Substack Newsletter Users of the thread were widely sharing posts by a person named Stephen Spoonamore, a well-known technology expert known by the nickname “Liberal Q.”
The widely shared post said a “full-fledged #fascist takeover is underway” after Trump supporters successfully “hacked the counting machines.”
“Spoonamore” post says, “Be aware that these people are sociopaths who will kill you. They are doing the same to others so act accordingly ' he warned.
The Post has reached out to Threads' parent company Meta for comment.
Threads, which launched last July, has 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month.
This user base is 175% larger than the 100 million users the company reported a year ago. Zuckerberg told investors last month that Threads was signing up more than 1 million users per day.
Meta rolled out Threads to compete with Musk's social media platform X, which has an estimated 318 million monthly users, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
