Biden’s campaign set to counterpunch on misinformation

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is overhauling its strategy to fight misinformation on social media in the 2024 race, recruiting hundreds of staffers and volunteers to monitor platforms, buying advertising to fight bogus claims, pushing its own countermessages out through grassroots allies — with a bulldog aide helping lead the effort.

The change is driven by concern that social media companies are less willing to police political misinformation, and also by the risks of mistruths and attacks from Republican rival Donald Trump and other GOP candidates, according to interviews with five Biden campaign officials over the past several weeks.

One of the leaders of the fight against what it expects to be a flood of misinformation will be a controversial figure: Rob Flaherty, the former White House director of digital strategy, whose combative emails to social media firms have become part of a Republican-led federal court case and a congressional investigation. He’ll work with the campaign’s legal, communications and digital teams to fight false narratives during the race.