Andre Barahona, 18, could vote in the presidential election. But he won’t, he said. The Loyola University Chicago freshman is not a big fan of politics.
He doesn’t support the platform of either major party. “There’s nothing really that stands out and makes me want to vote for either candidate right now,” said Barahona, who studies economics and fashion design. “So I’m not going to be voting.
I’ll be waiting for a good candidate.” Barahona attributes part of his apathy to the spread of false political information. He, like nearly 40% of American adults under the age of 30, gets his news from TikTok, a social media platform where users create and share short-form videos.
But experts warn that misinformation and disinformation on social media and elsewhere has made some young adults, a group that already doesn’t vote as much as older citizens, less interested in voting in the Nov. 5 election. Indeed, the spread of false political information has become such a multifaceted threat that last month Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul issued a warning about AI-generated misinformation, and the head of an Illinois election official association is contemplating buying body armor amid fears false information will cause someone to attack him.
In Wisconsin, a state known for having razor-thin presidential elections, voting rights advocates on Tuesday asked state and federal authorities to investigate anonymous text messages apparently targeting young Wisconsin voter.