While disinformation is not new to politics, today’s technologies enable political actors to manipulate the information ecosystem at scale and with great speed. Through massive networks of fake accounts, junk news sites, and the strategic use of conspiracy theories, half-truths, and falsehoods, authoritarian regimes and others are suffocating and dividing the public square. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, authoritarian governments and illiberal actors are drawing on similar approaches to discredit democracy while shaping international understandings of their response to the disease.

These “lie machines” are aided by expanding troves of data on individuals and an information ecosystem that facilitates polarization, outrage, and social distrust. The net result of their efforts is deadly to democracy. A new book by Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, describes how these machines operate—and how they can be taken apart.

Learn more about this event and our speakers at ned.org: https://www.ned.org/events/lie-machines-how-disinformation-threatens-democracy-and-how-to-save-it/

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