WEBVTT - Disinformation is Solvable 0:00:15.076 --> 0:00:25.356 Pushkin. This is solvable on Jacob Weisberg. Every time you 0:00:25.516 --> 0:00:28.036 browse around online, you have a teeny bit of power 0:00:28.076 --> 0:00:30.796 as a consumer in what you elevate and amplify and 0:00:31.076 --> 0:00:36.156 engage with. Since its beginnings, the Internet was meant to 0:00:36.196 --> 0:00:40.796 be a vehicle for free, uncensored communication. Though the Internet 0:00:40.876 --> 0:00:43.556 is international, the model was in many respects based on 0:00:43.596 --> 0:00:47.196 the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to free expression 0:00:47.436 --> 0:00:50.516 in the United States. But as we've all seen in 0:00:50.556 --> 0:00:55.596 recent years, free speech can also suppress speech. The same 0:00:55.716 --> 0:00:59.916 freedom that promotes creativity and collaboration can become a tool 0:00:59.996 --> 0:01:05.356 to spread lies and propaganda. Misinformation usually refers to facts 0:01:05.356 --> 0:01:09.276 that turn out to be wrong, and disinformation refers to 0:01:09.316 --> 0:01:13.636 wrong facts that are being deliberately peddled for a political end. 0:01:13.836 --> 0:01:18.956 So it's the more kind of sinister version. Disinformation now 0:01:18.996 --> 0:01:24.956 threatens American democracy directly. Malicious foreign actors, including the Russian government, 0:01:25.236 --> 0:01:29.876 are taking active measures to so confusion and cynicism, and 0:01:29.956 --> 0:01:35.556 it's unclear where the responsibility falls for separating facts from falsehoods. 0:01:36.716 --> 0:01:38.996 If you don't want the government to have any power 0:01:39.076 --> 0:01:41.836 over online speech, then you have to recognize that you 0:01:41.876 --> 0:01:44.716 have made mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey at Twitter and 0:01:44.756 --> 0:01:49.036 whoever runs YouTube the czars of speech. So you just 0:01:49.116 --> 0:01:52.756 got to reckon with that. I mean, the First Amendment 0:01:52.796 --> 0:01:55.796 is the closest thing to religion and the households I've 0:01:56.196 --> 0:02:00.876 lived in, and the idea that it's broken or needs 0:02:00.916 --> 0:02:06.276 to be modified or limited in some way is I mean, honestly, 0:02:06.316 --> 0:02:08.396 I can only go back to these religious terms. It 0:02:08.436 --> 0:02:12.196 feels herre icle to me, Yes, I know you and 0:02:12.276 --> 0:02:16.236 lots of people in my Twitter timeline. I deeply think 0:02:16.276 --> 0:02:19.956 it's crucial to every democracy to protect free speech. I 0:02:20.036 --> 0:02:22.596 think what Americans need to reconsider is how we are 0:02:22.636 --> 0:02:26.076 protecting free speech. Emily Basilon is a staff writer with 0:02:26.156 --> 0:02:29.196 The New York Times magazine. In her recent story The 0:02:29.316 --> 0:02:32.956 Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation, she 0:02:33.116 --> 0:02:36.836 explores the way free speech is being abused. I wanted 0:02:36.876 --> 0:02:39.796 to talk to her about that problem and what we 0:02:39.916 --> 0:02:47.756 might do about it. Disinformation is a solvable problem. We 0:02:47.876 --> 0:02:50.676 have this ideal of free speech, which is that there's 0:02:50.716 --> 0:02:54.156 a marketplace of ideas out there, that more speech is 0:02:54.156 --> 0:02:57.436 always better because the good ideas will win out in 0:02:57.476 --> 0:03:00.836 the end. It's a kind of fundamentally optimistic idea. It 0:03:00.876 --> 0:03:04.276 comes originally from the political philosopher John Stuart Mill and 0:03:04.396 --> 0:03:07.316 his book on Liberty in the nineteenth century, and then 0:03:07.356 --> 0:03:09.916 it kind of comes into Supreme court land in the 0:03:09.956 --> 0:03:13.676 twentieth century. But it often just turns out not to 0:03:13.716 --> 0:03:17.396 be true. There are various eras in history where propaganda 0:03:17.436 --> 0:03:21.476 and false ideas have actually won the day. In politics, 0:03:21.996 --> 0:03:24.596 you can think about the Nazis, you can think about 0:03:24.636 --> 0:03:30.716 times of Soviet Union, communism, other nineteen thirties examples of fascism, 0:03:30.756 --> 0:03:34.676 and more recent governments in places like Brazil and India 0:03:34.836 --> 0:03:38.556 where disinformation has really won out. And so I think 0:03:38.596 --> 0:03:41.716 that we are flirting with that possibility in a scary 0:03:41.756 --> 0:03:44.996 way in the United States right now. The fact is 0:03:45.036 --> 0:03:48.596 the marketplace of ideas was always a pretty shaky concept, 0:03:48.716 --> 0:03:52.756 and so free speech is really important to our democracy, 0:03:52.836 --> 0:03:55.996 but we need, I think, to reconceptualize how we think 0:03:55.996 --> 0:03:58.276 about it and how we protect it in a way 0:03:58.316 --> 0:04:02.636 that really protects the speech that supports the democracy instead 0:04:02.676 --> 0:04:05.036 of threatening it. Just so we Yet our terms clear 0:04:05.196 --> 0:04:10.236 say a little about how disinformation with a D differs 0:04:10.316 --> 0:04:13.316 from misinformation with an M. Yeah, I mean these are 0:04:13.436 --> 0:04:16.356 sort of recent terms that are only I think the 0:04:16.396 --> 0:04:19.396 definitions are becoming clear kind of as we speak. But 0:04:19.836 --> 0:04:24.036 misinformation usually refers to facts that turn out to be wrong, 0:04:24.516 --> 0:04:28.676 and disinformation refers to wrong facts that are being deliberately 0:04:28.796 --> 0:04:32.396 peddled for a political end. So it's the more kind 0:04:32.436 --> 0:04:38.476 of sinister version. Yeah, disinformation, intentional deception, often fueled by 0:04:38.636 --> 0:04:42.156 malicious actors of different kinds, is sort of crowding out 0:04:42.316 --> 0:04:45.196 the good information. I mean, there's a term in economics 0:04:45.236 --> 0:04:48.716 called Gresham's law, where you know, the bad money, the 0:04:48.756 --> 0:04:52.236 money that's fake gold kind of is circulating everywhere and 0:04:52.276 --> 0:04:55.676 the real money disappears from the marketplace. In a way, 0:04:55.676 --> 0:04:58.436 that's something like that happening with information right where there's 0:04:58.476 --> 0:05:02.596 just all of this swirling nonsense depending on where you 0:05:02.636 --> 0:05:05.796 get your information from, and you can't tell what's the 0:05:05.876 --> 0:05:09.676 good information or if there's any good information in that context. Ray. 0:05:09.756 --> 0:05:11.796 So one way to think about this is that it 0:05:11.916 --> 0:05:14.836 used to be hard to speak. We had gatekeepers, We 0:05:14.876 --> 0:05:20.356 had these traditional media companies that had a real hold 0:05:20.436 --> 0:05:23.476 and sort of control over speech. Now it's really easy 0:05:23.516 --> 0:05:26.036 to speak, but it's very hard to be heard. And 0:05:26.156 --> 0:05:29.356 some of what we see in disinformation campaigns is a 0:05:29.396 --> 0:05:33.036 deliberate effort to drown out true speech or to smear 0:05:33.116 --> 0:05:38.196 the reputations of people, especially online, so that they'll effectively 0:05:38.236 --> 0:05:40.476 be silenced. They all leave the space, they won't keep 0:05:40.556 --> 0:05:43.196 trying to talk. And so it's the use of speech 0:05:43.236 --> 0:05:46.196 to suppress speech, and that is very challenging for our 0:05:46.236 --> 0:05:48.996 American First Amendment to deal with. I mean, you had 0:05:48.996 --> 0:05:51.796 I thought a really good example in your piece, which 0:05:51.956 --> 0:05:54.516 was a meme. My eye hadn't come across that the 0:05:54.636 --> 0:05:58.916 Democrats were threatening to secede from the country if they 0:05:58.996 --> 0:06:01.836 lost the election. Just tell that story in brief, because 0:06:01.836 --> 0:06:05.276 it was such a tidy example of sort of you know, 0:06:05.356 --> 0:06:08.556 in the famous like Mark Twain, like a lie that 0:06:08.636 --> 0:06:10.836 got halfway around the world before the truth got its 0:06:10.836 --> 0:06:12.636 boots on him. It's just a piece of nonsense that's 0:06:12.636 --> 0:06:16.316 spread like wildfire. Right. Yeah. So over the summer, a 0:06:16.436 --> 0:06:23.396 group of academics and former administration officials, former campaign staffers, posters, 0:06:23.756 --> 0:06:27.596 they got together take game out the twenty twenty election, 0:06:27.996 --> 0:06:30.476 and they played out various scenarios in which one or 0:06:30.516 --> 0:06:33.836 the other candidate won. It was close, there was litigation, 0:06:33.956 --> 0:06:37.916 there wasn't They're basically testing the system of American democracy 0:06:38.436 --> 0:06:42.236 and Rosa Brooks, who was one of the co organizers 0:06:42.276 --> 0:06:44.756 of this project, wrote an essay in The Washington Post 0:06:44.756 --> 0:06:46.476 in which he mentioned that in one of the several 0:06:46.756 --> 0:06:51.876 hypothetical scenarios, Biden won the popular vote, Belosi Electoral College, 0:06:51.956 --> 0:06:57.076 and fictional team Biden talked about trying to ask California 0:06:57.116 --> 0:07:00.196 and the Pacific Northwest threatened to secede as a way 0:07:00.236 --> 0:07:03.396 of pressuring Republicans to add more seeds to the Senate. 0:07:03.676 --> 0:07:07.076 There's just a sentence about this in Rosa Brooks's essay. 0:07:07.956 --> 0:07:11.756 Out of that sentence comes an article by Michael Anton, 0:07:11.876 --> 0:07:15.916 a former Chump official and a conservative publication, arguing that 0:07:15.956 --> 0:07:20.196 a coup is coming. And from that article comes an 0:07:20.196 --> 0:07:24.076 appearance by another Chump official on Tucker Carlson Show talking 0:07:24.116 --> 0:07:28.516 about this fictional threat of a democratic coup, a very 0:07:28.596 --> 0:07:33.156 popular right wing podcaster named Dan Bongino. He shows up 0:07:33.276 --> 0:07:36.036 making videos about this that are getting millions and millions 0:07:36.076 --> 0:07:40.356 of views on social media. President Trump tweets in praise 0:07:40.556 --> 0:07:44.116 of a publication called Revolver News, a right wing website 0:07:44.156 --> 0:07:47.836 which is also spreading this false story. And what you 0:07:47.876 --> 0:07:50.116 see here all the parts of the right wing media 0:07:50.316 --> 0:07:55.516 ecosystem coming together to really give a big platform to 0:07:55.596 --> 0:07:58.436 this made up idea that the Democrats are planning a coup. 0:07:58.876 --> 0:08:04.076 It's like a malignant game of telephone exactly. It's a 0:08:04.076 --> 0:08:07.036 propaganda feedback loop. Yeah, I mean you use that to 0:08:07.516 --> 0:08:13.156 illustrate your argument that the First Amendment isn't serving democracy 0:08:13.196 --> 0:08:17.396 in America. The First Amendment is being used to advance 0:08:17.476 --> 0:08:21.916 propaganda disinformation, and it is not. It's not doing what 0:08:21.956 --> 0:08:25.556 it's supposed to do, which is get information to voters 0:08:25.596 --> 0:08:29.556 and help them make decisions. It's such a striking thing 0:08:29.596 --> 0:08:32.756 to say, and so obviously true in many respects, but 0:08:33.596 --> 0:08:35.556 I mean, I'll say I still have a hard time 0:08:36.396 --> 0:08:40.116 accepting criticism of the First Amendment. I mean, I'm a journalist, 0:08:40.156 --> 0:08:42.676 you're a journalist. You know I grew up in an 0:08:42.676 --> 0:08:45.356 Afilu family. I mean, the First Amendment is the closest 0:08:45.396 --> 0:08:49.276 thing to religion and the households I've lived in, and 0:08:49.396 --> 0:08:54.836 the idea that it's broken or needs to be modified 0:08:55.036 --> 0:08:58.236 or limited in some way is I mean, honestly, I 0:08:58.236 --> 0:09:00.596 can only go back to these religious terms. It feels 0:09:00.636 --> 0:09:03.796 heretical to me. Yes, I know you and lots of 0:09:03.796 --> 0:09:06.716 people in my Twitter timeline, so I guess I'll say 0:09:06.716 --> 0:09:09.036 two things. I do not mean to be making an 0:09:09.236 --> 0:09:13.316 argument against free speech. Like I deeply think it's crucial 0:09:13.356 --> 0:09:16.476 to every democracy to protect free speech. I think what 0:09:16.556 --> 0:09:19.876 Americans need to reconsider is how we are protecting free speech. 0:09:20.196 --> 0:09:23.916 Our First Amendment has come to put corporate interests, in 0:09:23.956 --> 0:09:28.156 particular corporate spending on elections on par with the shouting 0:09:28.156 --> 0:09:32.116 of protesters. That is not the way other democracies think 0:09:32.156 --> 0:09:35.756 about free speech in Europe and Canada and elsewhere. And 0:09:35.956 --> 0:09:41.036 that sort of libertarian corporatization of free speech and of 0:09:41.036 --> 0:09:43.076 the First Amendment. I think that's what we failed to 0:09:43.116 --> 0:09:46.036 grapple with. But it actually is the kind of underlying 0:09:46.076 --> 0:09:51.156 framework for both why the social media sphere circulates disinformation 0:09:51.196 --> 0:09:53.756 the way that it does, and also why we have 0:09:53.796 --> 0:09:57.436 a broken traditional media system in which we have underinvested 0:09:57.476 --> 0:10:00.996 in trusted public broadcasting. And again that is a big 0:10:01.036 --> 0:10:04.476 contrast between us and some of our pure countries in Europe. Right, 0:10:04.756 --> 0:10:08.076 I mean, someone like we believe the First Amendment isn't 0:10:08.116 --> 0:10:12.196 just important for democratic purpose, it's a human right. That is, 0:10:12.236 --> 0:10:14.396 it's you know, it's something that belongs to people. I 0:10:14.436 --> 0:10:17.716 don't believe it's a human right that belongs to non humans, 0:10:17.796 --> 0:10:22.156 i e. Corporations who maybe persons under a kind of 0:10:22.236 --> 0:10:25.356 legal fiction but aren't don't have human rights per se. 0:10:25.796 --> 0:10:28.316 But doesn't this all just go back to this series 0:10:28.356 --> 0:10:31.316 of Supreme Court decisions? I mean, is the problem with 0:10:31.396 --> 0:10:34.036 the First Amendment or is it simply with the way 0:10:34.476 --> 0:10:39.276 a conservative Supreme Court has used the First Amendment to 0:10:39.316 --> 0:10:43.516 protect commercial interests at the expensive democratic interest. I mean, 0:10:43.556 --> 0:10:45.516 it's the latter. The problem is not the text of 0:10:45.516 --> 0:10:48.396 the First Amendment right which protects our freedom of speech 0:10:48.436 --> 0:10:50.796 and freedom of assembly and the freedom of the press. 0:10:51.236 --> 0:10:53.516 It's a line of Supreme Court cases that start in 0:10:53.556 --> 0:10:57.516 the seventies and take off in the eighties and basically 0:10:57.596 --> 0:11:01.596 culminate in Citizens United, which gave corporation so much more 0:11:01.716 --> 0:11:04.956 ability to contribute to political campaigns. There are some other 0:11:04.996 --> 0:11:08.116 cases that come into play here too, involving labor unions. 0:11:08.236 --> 0:11:11.196 And it's really as Justice Elena Kagan put a kind 0:11:11.236 --> 0:11:14.156 of weaponizing of the First Amendment. And then I think 0:11:14.196 --> 0:11:16.556 the other strand of this that's important and that I 0:11:16.676 --> 0:11:18.396 learned a lot about when I was writing my piece 0:11:18.636 --> 0:11:24.036 is the deregulation of traditional media by the Reagan administration. 0:11:24.076 --> 0:11:26.516 In the eighties. So when you go back to the 0:11:26.516 --> 0:11:30.076 beginning of radio and TV, starting in nineteen twelve, you 0:11:30.116 --> 0:11:33.716 have Congress passing laws that are include the idea of 0:11:33.756 --> 0:11:37.076 a public interest, a public interest obligation by the people 0:11:37.076 --> 0:11:41.316 who are getting our broadband space. Right, Like we the 0:11:41.316 --> 0:11:44.676 American people, own the broadband. We are giving you a 0:11:44.676 --> 0:11:47.316 place on the radio dial or on the TV dial, 0:11:47.356 --> 0:11:51.476 and in return we expect some attention to the public interest. 0:11:51.916 --> 0:11:55.596 That idea lasts until the late eighties, and then it 0:11:55.636 --> 0:11:58.476 really goes away during the Reagan administration, and I think 0:11:58.476 --> 0:12:01.196 that's part of what leads to the rise of Fox 0:12:01.276 --> 0:12:04.876 News and talk radio like Rush Limbaugh. I'm not making 0:12:04.916 --> 0:12:09.836 an argument about conservative media because it's conservative, but I 0:12:09.876 --> 0:12:13.236 am talking about the way in which Fox and commentators 0:12:13.236 --> 0:12:17.436 like Limbaugh really spread disinformation more than the mainstream or 0:12:17.436 --> 0:12:19.716 the liberal media. I mean, there's a lot of evidence 0:12:19.756 --> 0:12:23.236 to back up that thesis, right, But you're arguing that 0:12:23.596 --> 0:12:27.116 Western European democracies that don't have the First Amendment per 0:12:27.156 --> 0:12:32.796 se maybe doing free speech better because their version of 0:12:32.876 --> 0:12:37.076 free speech doesn't prevent them from having reasonable regulation around campaigns. 0:12:37.436 --> 0:12:42.676 They have national broadcasters like the BBC that are generally reliable, 0:12:42.716 --> 0:12:46.156 trusted sources of information, and those are all good things, 0:12:46.476 --> 0:12:49.036 but they also those go in hand in hand with 0:12:49.116 --> 0:12:53.316 limitations that we would be in the United States more 0:12:53.356 --> 0:12:57.116 reluctant to accept, certainly those of us who are journalists. 0:12:56.636 --> 0:13:01.956 There's less protection for truth findings through journalism. It's easier 0:13:01.996 --> 0:13:04.916 to sue people for libel. And of course there are 0:13:04.996 --> 0:13:09.556 tougher restrictions on what people would call hate speech. That is, 0:13:09.556 --> 0:13:13.836 there are things, you know, political things, ideas that express 0:13:13.916 --> 0:13:16.396 animals that you know, can't be said in certain in 0:13:16.676 --> 0:13:19.236 certain places. That's you know, that's it's just a more 0:13:19.356 --> 0:13:24.356 limited conception of what free speech allows. I think that's true, 0:13:24.716 --> 0:13:27.276 especially about hate speech. And I think if you are 0:13:27.316 --> 0:13:31.236 really opposed to banning hate speech, then Europe looks like 0:13:31.276 --> 0:13:34.716 a problem because they do punish people for widely disseminated 0:13:34.756 --> 0:13:37.756 hate speech. In Europe, they have a trifferent tradition. Their 0:13:37.876 --> 0:13:41.196 tradition comes out of the fact that the Nazis rose 0:13:41.236 --> 0:13:44.436 to power because they were elected, and so in Europe 0:13:44.476 --> 0:13:49.276 there is this deep sense that anti democratic ideas can 0:13:49.356 --> 0:13:52.276 be terribly threatening and they're just kind of done with 0:13:52.316 --> 0:13:55.356 them and willing to regulate them and ban them in 0:13:55.396 --> 0:13:57.756 a way that we are not. It's a kind of 0:13:58.276 --> 0:14:02.436 more pessimistic view of the marketplace of ideas than we have. 0:14:02.956 --> 0:14:05.796 I guess the question and you know here we are unsolvable, 0:14:05.876 --> 0:14:07.836 and I want to, you know, focus on now when 0:14:07.876 --> 0:14:10.996 are we solving the problem the conversation we can on 0:14:11.196 --> 0:14:18.436 exactly that. You know, what is the solution in broad strokes, Well, 0:14:18.476 --> 0:14:20.676 I think if you are thinking in a kind of 0:14:20.716 --> 0:14:25.516 blue sky way, you could start with investment in traditional 0:14:25.556 --> 0:14:29.716 media in the United States on par with European countries, 0:14:29.996 --> 0:14:33.196 for example, like the BBC in the United Kingdom or 0:14:33.596 --> 0:14:37.156 RD in Germany. And I think especially important is creating 0:14:37.196 --> 0:14:44.316 outlets or more opportunity for competition that conservative audiences will trust. 0:14:44.556 --> 0:14:46.916 So you know, we have lots of fact checking of 0:14:46.996 --> 0:14:49.556 Fox from outlets like CNN and the New York Times 0:14:49.556 --> 0:14:52.276 where I work, but those are just not trusted outlets 0:14:52.276 --> 0:14:55.756 in a conservative part of a country or conservative audience, 0:14:55.796 --> 0:14:59.756 and so you would want to create more competition, particularly 0:14:59.756 --> 0:15:02.236 in that space. The second thing that we're going to 0:15:02.476 --> 0:15:06.836 watch the Europeans do is figure out how to make 0:15:06.956 --> 0:15:11.036 the big social media platform MS more responsible, how to 0:15:11.196 --> 0:15:15.556 essentially inject a public interest sense of obligation into what 0:15:15.596 --> 0:15:17.836 they do. I think they're just going to do it 0:15:17.956 --> 0:15:23.476 much faster than we are. One advantage in regulation I 0:15:23.516 --> 0:15:25.796 think the Europeans have over the United States is that 0:15:26.116 --> 0:15:29.676 these big social media companies they're American companies, they're not 0:15:29.756 --> 0:15:34.276 European companies. And so in United States Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, 0:15:34.516 --> 0:15:36.476 they show up in Congress and they say, hey, if 0:15:36.476 --> 0:15:38.836 you don't protect us, you're going to empower the Chinese 0:15:38.956 --> 0:15:41.396 TikTok is going to take over the world. The Europeans 0:15:41.396 --> 0:15:43.836 aren't particularly moved by that argument. They don't feel the 0:15:43.876 --> 0:15:47.436 same need to protect American corporations, and I think that 0:15:47.596 --> 0:15:49.676 is why they're going to lead the way in figuring 0:15:49.716 --> 0:15:53.476 out how to have just a healthier social media environment. 0:15:53.716 --> 0:15:57.996 Although these companies have big lobbying operations in Brussels, they're 0:15:58.636 --> 0:16:02.236 working the European legislators the same as they're working the 0:16:02.236 --> 0:16:05.756 ones here. Absolutely, I mean, I yes, I'm glad you 0:16:05.836 --> 0:16:07.836 said that they just don't have the kind of home 0:16:07.916 --> 0:16:12.196 team antis, but they are absolutely spending lots of money 0:16:12.356 --> 0:16:15.196 doing exactly that. And there are a range of things 0:16:15.196 --> 0:16:17.916 to talk about here. I mean, I don't I am 0:16:17.956 --> 0:16:22.076 not in favor of direct government regulation of speech online. Like, 0:16:22.116 --> 0:16:24.516 I don't think we should create a federal Department of 0:16:24.556 --> 0:16:28.436 Content moderation. But what we could do, or what the 0:16:28.476 --> 0:16:31.516 Europeans may well do, is start requiring, first of all, 0:16:31.596 --> 0:16:35.516 much more transparency from these companies. Well, let's dig into 0:16:35.516 --> 0:16:38.756 the social media part of it first, because you know, 0:16:38.916 --> 0:16:44.596 here we have a conundrum. We've given these companies permission 0:16:44.676 --> 0:16:47.276 to not be responsible for what they've published. This is 0:16:47.276 --> 0:16:50.476 the so called Section two thirty that says as long 0:16:50.516 --> 0:16:56.436 as their platforms and not publishers, they're not legally culpable 0:16:56.476 --> 0:17:01.556 and what publishers are. And they've generally taken that to mean, well, 0:17:01.836 --> 0:17:03.956 you know, it's not up to us whether something is true, 0:17:04.076 --> 0:17:07.156 it's not. We don't decide what's good information and what's 0:17:07.196 --> 0:17:10.556 bad information. All we have to do is take things 0:17:10.556 --> 0:17:13.436 down if they vile a copyright or I guess increasingly 0:17:13.716 --> 0:17:18.836 if they are proven false. They may limit the spread 0:17:18.876 --> 0:17:22.036 of them. At the moment, independent researchers can't even tell 0:17:22.036 --> 0:17:26.716 you how prevalent disinformation and hate speech is on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, 0:17:26.756 --> 0:17:28.876 and these are places that are not governed by the 0:17:28.876 --> 0:17:32.636 First Amendment. They already police lots of speech, right, they're 0:17:32.676 --> 0:17:35.156 not the public square. They sort of function that way, 0:17:35.156 --> 0:17:38.236 but legally they have much more freedom to monitor speech 0:17:38.276 --> 0:17:41.036 than the government does. They're not the government, they're companies. 0:17:41.316 --> 0:17:43.556 But we don't even really know what they're doing when 0:17:43.596 --> 0:17:46.036 they say that they're fact checking or putting fact checking 0:17:46.116 --> 0:17:50.836 labels on posts, or reducing the spread of disinformation. We 0:17:50.916 --> 0:17:53.636 have to trust their internal reports about the effects that 0:17:53.716 --> 0:17:56.796 has we don't even know. So that's like one place 0:17:56.796 --> 0:17:59.876 to start solving this problem is just literally to find 0:17:59.916 --> 0:18:03.596 out what's going on inside those companies, and then we 0:18:03.636 --> 0:18:06.676 can talk about other parts of this involving like the 0:18:06.716 --> 0:18:10.436 way that their algorithm functions. Yeah, so a crucial suggestion 0:18:10.676 --> 0:18:13.756 is if we're going to do something about disinformation, the 0:18:13.876 --> 0:18:18.756 places that are the main avenues for disinformation. I eat 0:18:18.916 --> 0:18:21.516 Twitter and Facebook more than any others, but the social 0:18:21.516 --> 0:18:25.116 media platforms YouTube, Jacob, we got to include sorry, your 0:18:25.156 --> 0:18:27.756 YouTube absolutely fem in there because they always we always 0:18:27.796 --> 0:18:29.876 leave them out. They have to get good at dealing 0:18:29.916 --> 0:18:32.676 with disincinformation. They have to get good at spotting it 0:18:32.996 --> 0:18:37.076 and keeping it from spreading. And you know, the question is, 0:18:37.116 --> 0:18:39.836 then do they are they going to do? Are they 0:18:39.876 --> 0:18:42.676 incentive has to do that on their own will regulation 0:18:42.796 --> 0:18:46.556 make them do that? Or are there rules like if 0:18:46.596 --> 0:18:49.676 they adopt standard, setting up some sort of independent governing 0:18:49.716 --> 0:18:52.276 body that will enforce the rules they set in a 0:18:52.316 --> 0:18:55.676 consistent manner. Right. That's another thing that Europeans are talking 0:18:55.676 --> 0:18:59.276 about is whether they should have some kind of government 0:18:59.276 --> 0:19:03.236 agency that they don't even necessarily talking about setting the rules, 0:19:03.316 --> 0:19:06.196 but saying to these platforms, Okay, what are your rules, 0:19:06.556 --> 0:19:08.636 and then how can you show us that you're actually 0:19:08.916 --> 0:19:12.436 in forcing them in a fair and comprehensive way. Like 0:19:12.516 --> 0:19:15.756 that's a role you could imagine the government playing. Yeah, 0:19:15.876 --> 0:19:17.996 what can we do about the other side of this, 0:19:18.116 --> 0:19:23.676 the political side, the unlimited money, the undisclosed sources of 0:19:23.756 --> 0:19:29.836 funding on political ads online. Absent a new Supreme Court 0:19:29.876 --> 0:19:34.796 that revisits citizens United, how can we regulate politics in 0:19:34.836 --> 0:19:39.116 a way that de weaponizes the First Amendment? Well, I mean, 0:19:39.316 --> 0:19:41.996 there is nothing in the Supreme Court jurisprints that would 0:19:42.036 --> 0:19:46.996 prevent Congress from requiring disclosure of funding sources for online ads, 0:19:47.076 --> 0:19:49.996 just as they do for radio and television imprint that 0:19:50.116 --> 0:19:53.916 is still available. Another possibility would be to ban or 0:19:53.956 --> 0:19:57.876 regulate what's called microtargeting, which are these very narrow casted 0:19:57.916 --> 0:20:01.796 ads online in which you can pick exactly who you 0:20:01.796 --> 0:20:04.596 want to reach. You can send a more extremist kind 0:20:04.636 --> 0:20:07.196 of message to one part of the electorate and then 0:20:07.756 --> 0:20:11.316 more moderate ones to other parts. And if you're slicing 0:20:11.316 --> 0:20:14.636 and dicing the electrode into very thin slices and sending 0:20:14.636 --> 0:20:17.956 out lots of messages, the chances that people are going 0:20:17.996 --> 0:20:21.996 to fact check all the messages you're sending are much lower. 0:20:22.036 --> 0:20:25.716 Like people aren't even going to see the messages necessarily, 0:20:25.916 --> 0:20:27.876 they may never surface in a way that they come 0:20:27.916 --> 0:20:30.676 to the attention of the press. And so we've seen 0:20:30.796 --> 0:20:33.836 a lot of domestic groups do this in this cycle. 0:20:33.916 --> 0:20:37.356 This is what the Russians did in twenty sixteen. Microtargeted 0:20:37.396 --> 0:20:39.676 ads are one thing. If you're buying shoes, maybe they're 0:20:39.676 --> 0:20:42.116 a totally different thing. And we shouldn't allow campaigns and 0:20:42.236 --> 0:20:45.876 issue advocacy groups to use them. That's one possibility. Isn't 0:20:45.916 --> 0:20:50.836 another important part of it just the widespread consciousness that 0:20:50.876 --> 0:20:55.156 we are prone to disinformation. I mean that there we 0:20:55.556 --> 0:20:57.556 know more and more about how it works, we have 0:20:57.596 --> 0:21:01.236 some ideas where it's coming from, and isn't that you know? 0:21:01.276 --> 0:21:04.476 And that's that's like wearing masks during the pandemic, you 0:21:04.556 --> 0:21:09.116 just have to take some basic precautions totally. I agree. 0:21:09.276 --> 0:21:11.276 I guess what I worry about is that the people 0:21:11.316 --> 0:21:14.116 who are aware of what you just said are not 0:21:14.156 --> 0:21:16.596 the people who are falling for it. You know, sometimes 0:21:16.636 --> 0:21:18.596 when I'm out reporting and I'm talking to people who 0:21:18.636 --> 0:21:21.796 aren't journalists and don't really know very much about politics, 0:21:22.236 --> 0:21:25.396 I just sense a level of exhaustion and confusion about 0:21:25.396 --> 0:21:28.436 which sources of information to trust. And I think if 0:21:28.436 --> 0:21:31.916 you're in that sphere and you're just really not sure 0:21:32.036 --> 0:21:35.596 who's telling the truth, it's very hard to figure out 0:21:35.636 --> 0:21:39.916 what to do because like your whole sense of trustworthy 0:21:39.956 --> 0:21:43.836 information has been destabilized and kind of scrambled. I mean 0:21:44.436 --> 0:21:47.596 an extreme example of this is Russia under putin, where 0:21:47.596 --> 0:21:52.876 people just don't trust anything and I'm not sure what. Well, 0:21:53.716 --> 0:21:55.916 it's not a good thing to say unsolvable. I think 0:21:55.996 --> 0:21:58.796 that one thing we can do about that is a 0:21:58.836 --> 0:22:03.116 longer term effort to really teach people about how social 0:22:03.156 --> 0:22:06.356 media and media work, and that's important. In the more 0:22:06.596 --> 0:22:10.636 short term, we also need to make sure that when 0:22:10.636 --> 0:22:12.756 we talk about disinformation, we don't do it in a 0:22:12.756 --> 0:22:15.476 way that makes it seem so overwhelming that we just 0:22:15.596 --> 0:22:18.636 like exhaust all the people who are not super plugged 0:22:18.636 --> 0:22:22.396 in and make them feel like politics is just useless 0:22:22.436 --> 0:22:25.356 and not something that they can ever figure out. I 0:22:25.436 --> 0:22:30.036 worry about that. Yeah, it's interesting. On coronavirus, the social 0:22:30.076 --> 0:22:33.516 media companies at the outset took a pretty strong position 0:22:33.956 --> 0:22:38.276 that they were going to take down disinformation because it 0:22:38.356 --> 0:22:41.436 was so dangerous for obvious reasons, and they were pretty 0:22:41.436 --> 0:22:44.196 good about that. On the one hand, it doesn't seem 0:22:44.276 --> 0:22:47.076 to have had that much of an impact in that 0:22:47.116 --> 0:22:52.036 there's still tremendous disinformation spreading and being believed by a 0:22:52.116 --> 0:22:55.916 significant portion of the population. On the other hand, it's 0:22:55.916 --> 0:22:59.076 a pretty good model for how they can get bad 0:22:59.116 --> 0:23:03.276 information out of their systems when they want to. Yeah, 0:23:03.356 --> 0:23:07.556 it's interesting because before coronavirus, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube would 0:23:07.556 --> 0:23:11.036 almost always say like, we can't promote authoritative sources, that's 0:23:11.076 --> 0:23:15.116 not our role. And then the World Health Organization came 0:23:15.156 --> 0:23:17.436 to them in March and said we have an infodemic 0:23:17.516 --> 0:23:21.316 on our hands, meaning like a pandemic of disinformation, and 0:23:21.396 --> 0:23:24.516 the platform said okay, and they started trying to promote 0:23:24.516 --> 0:23:28.436 information From the World Health Organization and the CDC. There 0:23:28.476 --> 0:23:32.036 has still been a lot of misinformation about coronavirus online. 0:23:32.516 --> 0:23:34.676 Trump has contributed to a lot of it. You know, 0:23:34.716 --> 0:23:38.116 when Trump started talking about how you can inject disinfectant, 0:23:38.916 --> 0:23:42.116 his words stayed up online, but also the social media 0:23:42.116 --> 0:23:46.036 companies then left up other claims about bleach is disinfectant. 0:23:46.116 --> 0:23:49.276 So there's some way in which Trump himself, at least 0:23:49.276 --> 0:23:52.716 in the United States, is like a major causal factor, 0:23:52.876 --> 0:23:54.796 and or at least we won't know how much it's 0:23:54.796 --> 0:23:59.436 about him until we've moved into some post Donald Trump world. Emily, 0:23:59.476 --> 0:24:03.076 we usually wrap up by asking what listeners can do 0:24:03.276 --> 0:24:05.756 to help with the problem. I think this is one 0:24:05.876 --> 0:24:08.236 where a lot of people have a lot of opinions, 0:24:08.276 --> 0:24:10.236 But what do you think are the most important things 0:24:10.236 --> 0:24:14.316 that ordinary people can do to fight the spread of disinformation. 0:24:15.156 --> 0:24:17.796 The first thing is you can learn more about these issues, 0:24:17.916 --> 0:24:23.676 especially on social media. The Stanford Internet Observatory Cyber Policy 0:24:23.756 --> 0:24:28.556