Fox's Fear-Mongering Lies

On March 21, Lucas Manfredi of Fox News reported, “ID.me, a computer security firm which verifies worker identities across 19 states, roughly 75% of the national population, finds that more than $200 billion in federal assistance for unemployed Americans may have been pocketed through fraud.” Conversely, ID.me’s press release on the matter of federal assistance fraud states, “ID.me, a federally certified identity verification provider, announced that it has been able to verify the identities of over 200,000 citizens who filed claims for unemployment benefits over the past several months. As a result, an estimated $1.2 billion in claims have been distributed to the citizens of seven states, including four of the most highly populated in the nation. […] ID.me is used by federal agencies such as Social Security and Treasury as well as the states of Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, California, and Pennsylvania.” A far cry from Fox’s assertion that ID.me has empirical evidence to suggest that the government has failed, ID.me has publicly mentioned it’s close work with federal and state governments.

Since ID.me’s raw data involves highly sensitive personal information in the form of nominal data from their users, that cannot be released to the public, so their statements on the sample data they obtained must serve as our primary dataset. Unfortunately, this means we do not know how many variables were tested, what was done to reduce sampling error, or what measures are at play, but we do know that this information was obtained from over 200,000 American adults. While we do not have the resources, authority, or credibility to obtain and analyze identity verification mechanisms and reliability, so this is not replicable, Fox does not have this either. They do not claim to have done a replication of ID.me’s research to determine fraud levels in regard to unemployment assistance; therefore, there is no information to justify the discrepancy between ID.me’s reports and Fox’s.

ID.me is not the only identity verification service out there, nor the only one that is federally recognized. IDManagement.gov provides a list of private identity verification providers that pass the FIPS 201, a federal evaluation of verification providers. Had Manfredi wanted to provide a more accurate picture of pandemic relief fraud, or even if he wanted to better substantiate his claims with cherry-picked information, he could have reached out to these providers or other companies that have a stake in this such as fraud lawyers. ID.me reveals in this same press release that many Americans are unaware of the fact that their social security numbers are being sold on the dark web (Fernandez, 2020). This could have been a much better datapoint for Manfredi to hone in on, if his apparent goal of fear-mongering is accurate; however, this effects all Americans equally whereas welfare fraud has been a partisan issue for decades and by framing this new wave of pandemic relief is further evidence that liberal efforts to provide aid will never work and just be exploited instead of going to those who need it. Essentially, dark web identity theft, while frightening, misses out on the partisan rage that Manfredi’s claim contains.

As is the reputation of Fox News, it appears the audience for this claim is middle-aged Republicans and Conservatives and its purpose to further instill hatred towards Democrats and Liberals to increase the partisan divide, even amidst this pandemic. Since Fox News is a news source, and for a period of time, the only one endorsed by former President Trump, those who read it accept to be able to rely on reporters such as Manfredi for reliable updates on current events. The presidential endorsement gave Fox News increased reliability for many in the target audience of this article, even if the information it presented was a stretch from the original reports. Moreover, the article does not specifically name Democrats or their policies as to blame for this increase in fraudulent activity, further showing how it was tailored for a middle-aged Republican audience that would already be aware of how liberal policies favor more welfare and stimulus-based approaches than their own party’s policies.