Your Undivided Attention Interview Renee De Resta

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This kind of viral propaganda is a new kind of thing it's an autoimmune disease that uses our platforms against themselves and it uses our values against us. How can we make this kind of viralaganda first more visible and then second how do we keep it from going viral in the first place? We are holding real-time virtual conversations with members of our community to react and share solutions you can find a link and information about the next one on our website humanetech.com slash podcast your undivided attention was produced by the Center for Humane Technology.

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.