Call Recording: Social Media Heads to Washington

Listen to Call Recording

Tech companies are on the hot seat both for allowing Russia to target American voters on their platforms, and for continuing to allow fake news created by hostile actors to thrive on their platforms. The Senate Intelligence Committee has scheduled a public hearing On November 1 and has invited Facebook, Google, and Twitter to testify. In advance of this hearing Factual Democracy Project’s next call will explore why our social media companies are so easily exploited, what Americans (regardless of political affiliation) expect tech companies to do about it, and how we can make our voices heard before the Senate Intelligence Committee and other congressional hearings.

Speakers:

• Tom Jensen, Director, PPP Polling. Longtime pollster Tom Jensen conducted recent national polling exploring whether Americans think Facebook should take steps to prevent foreign powers from using fake news to meddle in our elections.

• Lisa-Maria Neudert, Researcher, Oxford Internet Institute, whose Computational Propaganda report of bot/troll manipulation includes case studies from 9 different countries. The research has been featured in a variety of publications, including most recently Mother Jones.;

• Sam Jeffers, Who Targets Me. Who Targets Me already does what Facebook is promising to do and more. Sam has a keen understanding of how voters are targeted on social media. A former senior-level consultant for Blue State Digital, he has extensive campaign experience;

• Delip Rao, Fake News Challenge. Fake News Challenge explores “how artificial intelligence technologies, particularly machine learning and natural language processing, might be leveraged to combat the fake news problem.” Rao’s OpEd about how technology can stop fake news was published in the Seattle Times;

• Elizabeth Beavers, Indivisible. Elizabeth directs Indivisible’s work to advocate for a progressive foreign policy and protect the rights and liberties that are too often threatened in the name of national security.