IRL: Online Life is Real Life cover image

IRL: Online Life is Real Life

Democracy and the Internet

Jul 1, 2019
Journalist Mark Scott, Minister Karina Gould, and ACLU representative Ben Wizner discuss the influence of the internet on democracy, including Facebook's EU election war room and Canada's new law on online political ads. The podcast also explores Ukraine's battle against fake news, highlights the importance of offline conversations, and addresses the risks of targeted political ads.
25:04

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • The establishment of Facebook's European Union election war room raised concerns about the efficiency and efficacy of monitoring online content to protect democracy.
  • The new law in Canada requiring registration of political ads aimed at targeting voters highlights the need for transparency, while also recognizing the role of civil society and media in providing accurate information.

Deep dives

Facebook's War Room for EU Elections

Facebook set up a dedicated war room to monitor and take down posts with false information, delete fake accounts, and terminate bots violating platform rules to interfere with the EU elections. The war room, consisting mostly of male, mostly white engineers, collectively monitored online content in all 24 EU languages and displayed real-time social media data. However, while the war room was intended to be a pivotal tool for protecting democracy, the reality was more mundane, involving looking at screens and checking for disinformation. The efficiency of Facebook's war room is questioned, as it may be driven by public relations motives and doubts exist about the ability to fully stop the spread of false narratives.

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