What's the Problem With That Persuasive App?

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"What's the problem with that christian and i talk it over"? "I think the question is when the receiver of that persuasion is unaware of the source of it or the motives behind it," he says. A new app called face app has been downloaded a hundred and fifty million times by people who want to look older than they are. It was built in russia, where zuckerberg once worked as an executive at a major tech company. People say oh man like all those dumb gullible people over there that got influenced by russian propaganda wow how vulnerable they are according to Zuckerman.

Today’s online propaganda has evolved in unforeseeable and seemingly absurd ways; by laughing at or spreading a Kermit the Frog meme, you may be unwittingly advancing the Russian agenda. These campaigns affect our elections integrity, public health, and relationships. In this episode, the first of two parts, disinformation expert Renee DiResta talks with Tristan and Aza about how these tactics work, how social media platforms’ algorithms and business models allow foreign agents to game the system, and what these messages reveal to us about ourselves. Renee gained unique insight into this issue when in 2017 Congress asked her to lead a team of investigators analyzing a data set of texts, images and videos from Facebook, Twitter and Google thought to have been created by Russia’s Internet Research Agency. She shares what she learned, and in part two of their conversation, Renee, Tristan and Aza will discuss what steps can be taken to prevent this kind of manipulation in the future.