Palo Alto Talk: Truth and Trust in Times of Junk News
The past year has been dominated by stories of how junk news has influenced major political decisions on both sides of the Atlantic. Algorithms, automation and social media have become powerful tools for social movements, but also effective tools for social control.
This short talk will introduce the latest research from the Oxford University team that has pioneered the social science of fake news, expose the democratic challenges we must face next, and offer some ideas for how to restore truth and trust in public life. Can artificial intelligence help us identify the truth or will it divide us further? What role should we play as active digital citizens and what responsibility do technology and news organizations have for keeping democracy healthy? And what impact will all this have on our society, our institutions and our future?
Thursday, January 18, 2018 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Sheraton Palo Alto Hotel
Reserve seats on Eventbrite.
Phil Howard is a professor and writer. He teaches at Oxford University and is a Professorial Fellow at Balliol College. He writes about information politics and international affairs, and he is the author of eight books, including The Managed Citizen,The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, and now Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up. He has won multiple "best book" awards, and his research and commentary writing has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, and many international media outlets. In 2017 Foreign Policy magazine named him a "Global Thinker" and the National Democratic Institute awarded him their "Democracy Prize" for pioneering the social science of fake news.
Please email events@oxfordna.org with any questions. Alumni Event in Palo Alto with Phil Howard, Oxford Internet Institute.
Polarization, Partisanship and Junk News Consumption on Social Media During the 2018 US Midterm Elections
research, 1 November 2018
Computational Propaganda: The Book
research, 19 October 2018
News and Political Information Consumption in Brazil: Mapping the 2018 Brazilian Presidential Election on Twitter
research, 5 October 2018
Chinese computational propaganda: automation, algorithms and the manipulation of information about Chinese politics on Twitter and Weibo
research, 5 September 2018