Introduction

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Researcher cami francois and she's been trying to see behind the curtain of social media for years, but not unprecedented levels of enforcement. What we need is to keep the long view here. And because we don't have that much transparency from the platforms on the many decisions that they've made in the past, doesn't mean that there're not a lot of precedents here that are really important. It's hard enough to manage the situation just in the us. But it's even more convoluted, uneven and incomplete in many other parts of the world.

Disinformation researchers have been fighting two battles over the last decade: one to combat and contain harmful information, and one to convince the world that these manipulations have an offline impact that requires complex, nuanced solutions. Camille François, Chief Information Officer at the cybersecurity company Graphika and an affiliate of the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, believes that our common understanding of the problem has recently reached a new level. In this interview, she catalogues the key changes she observed between studying Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and helping convene and operate the Election Integrity Partnership watchdog group before, during and after the 2020 election. “I'm optimistic, because I think that things that have taken quite a long time to land are finally landing, and because I think that we do have a diverse set of expertise at the table,” she says. Camille and Tristan Harris dissect the challenges and talk about the path forward to a healthy information ecosystem.