January 6, 2021, Stop the Steal, and Social Media

Research by Lindsay Hoffman, associate professor of communication in the College of Arts and Sciences, and doctoral students Wyatt Dawson and Ebuka Ifeanyichukwu was published in their article, “Perception and Mobilization of ‘Truth’: January 6, 2021, Stop the Steal, and Social Media” (PSQ, 2025).

It analyzes how social media discourse contributed to mobilization around the January 6 insurrection. The researchers conducted a content analysis of nearly 1,500 tweets from political and opinion leaders’ feeds spanning from the 2020 U.S. election through January 6, 2021.

They found a strong association between tweets that mentioned the election and those containing election-related misinformation. Moreover, there was a moderate correlation between tweets with calls to action and violent rhetoric. Importantly, tweets containing misinformation or references to the election received significantly higher engagement.

Their findings suggest that the “Stop the Steal” movement leveraged Twitter (now X) to spread electoral falsehoods and incite mobilization, with real-world consequences culminating in violence on January 6.