Introducing the Arbiters of Truth
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2019
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is the first episode in a new special series—"Arbiters of Truth"—about disinformation and online speech in the lead up to the 2020 election.
From Russian election interference, to scandals over privacy and invasive ad targeting, to presidential tweets: it’s all happening in online spaces governed by private social media companies. And as the 2020 presidential election draws nearer, these conflicts are only going to grow in importance. In this series, Evelyn Douek, Kate Klonick, Alina Polyakova, and Quinta Jurecic will be talking to experts and practitioners about the major challenges our new information ecosystem poses for elections and democracy in general, and the dangers of finding cures that are worse than the disease.
“Arbiters of Truth” is a reference to something Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said right after the 2016 election, when Facebook was still reeling from accusations that it hadn’t done enough to clamp down on disinformation during the presidential campaign. Zuckerberg wrote that social media platforms “must be extremely cautious about becoming arbiters of truth ourselves.”
Well, if Facebook doesn’t want to be the arbiter of truth, we’re here to do it for them. In this episode, the group sat down to talk about their work on disinformation and the main questions that they hope to answer in this podcast over the coming months.
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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. |
| 0:32.6 | Wait, one often hears when you hear this, we're not the arbiters of truth response from |
| 0:40.3 | some of the platforms is what they mean by that is they don't see themselves, they don't |
| 0:45.9 | want to be defined as traditional media companies or as publishers. |
| 0:52.1 | I'm Quintedurusic and this is the LawFair podcast October 31st, 2019. |
| 0:59.1 | Today we're bringing you the first episode in a special series that will be running in |
| 1:03.2 | the lead up to the 2020 election about disinformation and online speech. |
| 1:09.6 | From Russian election interference to scandals over privacy and invasive ad targeting to presidential |
| 1:15.0 | tweets, it's all happening in online spaces governed by private social media companies. |
| 1:21.3 | And as the 2020 presidential election draws nearer, these conflicts are only going to |
| 1:25.8 | grow in importance. |
| 1:28.0 | In this series, my colleagues Evelyn Duac, Kate Klonic, Alina Poliakova and I will be |
| 1:33.2 | talking to experts and practitioners about the major challenges our new information ecosystem |
| 1:38.4 | poses for elections in democracy in general and the danger of finding cures that are worse |
| 1:43.8 | than the disease. |
| 1:45.9 | We're calling the series Arbiters of Truth, a reference to something Facebook CEO Mark |
| 1:51.1 | Zuckerberg said right after the 2016 election, when Facebook was still reeling from accusations |
| 1:56.8 | that it hadn't done enough to clamp down on disinformation. |
... |
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