Facebook v. the White House: Renee DiResta and Brendan Nyhan Weigh In
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2021
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Summary
This week we're bringing you the breakdown of the heavyweight bout of the century—a battle over vaccine misinformation. In the left corner we have the White House. Known for its impressive arsenal and bully pulpit, this week it asked for the fight and came out swinging with claims that Facebook is a killer—and not in a good way. In the right corner we have Facebook, known for its ability to just keep taking punches while continuing to grace our screens and rake in the cash. The company has hit back with gusto, saying that Facebook has actually helped people learn the facts on vaccines. Period. Will either of them land a knockout blow? Is this just the first round of many match ups?
On this episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on our online information ecosystem, we devote the conversation to the latest slugfest between Facebook and the White House. Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Renee DiResta, the research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and Brendan Nyhan, professor of government at Dartmouth University, both of whom have been working on questions of online health misinformation. Let’s get ready to rumble.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:34.0 | We shouldn't make any mistake that any vaccine, even in a world where everyone was endorsing |
| 0:38.1 | it would have faced some hesitancy and the stream of negative information that's come in |
| 0:44.4 | particular from prominent news outlets and political elites is likely to reach many more |
| 0:51.0 | people at a higher volume than these particular Facebook disinformation sources. |
| 0:59.1 | I'm Quintajerastic and this is the LawFair podcast July 22, 2021. |
| 1:07.7 | This week we're bringing you the breakdown of the heavyweight bout of the century, a battle |
| 1:12.8 | over vaccine misinformation. |
| 1:15.8 | In the left corner we have the White House, known for its impressive arsenal and bully pulpit, |
| 1:21.1 | this week it asked for the fight and came out swinging with claims that Facebook is the |
| 1:24.7 | killer and not in a good way. |
| 1:28.2 | In the right corner we have Facebook, known for its ability to just keep taking punches |
| 1:32.8 | while continuing to grace our screens and rake in the cash. |
| 1:36.8 | The company is hit back with gusto, saying that Facebook has actually helped people learn |
| 1:41.3 | the facts on vaccines, period. |
| 1:43.8 | Well, either of them land and knock out blow? |
| 1:47.2 | Is this just the first round of many matchups? |
| 1:50.7 | On this episode of our Arbordus of Truth series and our online information ecosystem, we |
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