Joe Bernstein

Joe Bernstein, a Senior Reporter at BuzzFeed News and author of "Bad News," dives into the murky waters of online disinformation. He discusses how major tech companies like Facebook and Google profit from misinformation, even as they claim to combat it. Bernstein examines the complexities of defining disinformation and the role of social media in radicalizing beliefs, particularly seen with the January 6th Capitol riot. The conversation highlights a paradoxical relationship where democratized information flow leads to both empowerment and chaos in contemporary society.

This week on our Arbiters of Truth series on our online information ecosystem, we’re going to be talking about … disinformation! What else? It’s everywhere. It’s ruining society. It’s the subject of endless academic articles, news reports, opinion columns, and, well, podcasts. Welcome to what BuzzFeed News reporter Joe Bernstein has termed “Big Disinformation.” In a provocative essay in the September issue of Harper’s Magazine, he argues that anxiety over bad information has become a cultural juggernaut that draws in far more attention and funding than the problem really merits—and that the intellectual foundations of that juggernaut are, to a large extent, built on sand. Joe joined Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic to discuss his article and the response to it among researchers and reporters who work in the field. Joe explained his argument and described what it feels like to be unexpectedly cited by Facebook PR. What led him to essentially drop a bomb into an entire discipline? What does his critique mean for how we think about the role of platforms in American society right now? And … is he right?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.