Renée DiResta: The Influence of Misinformation Artwork

The Digital Insider with Sinan Aral

The Digital Insider with Sinan Aral, is dedicated to getting to the hard science behind the digital economy. MIT Professor, IDE Director, and author of “The Hype Machine," Sinan Aral, sits down with some of the most brilliant minds on the planet, including Nobel laureate, Maria Ressa, Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen, NYU Professor and business guru, Scott Galloway, and broadcast news journalist and MSNBC host, Ali Velshi, to explore the latest trends in digital business and society. Each episode takes a deep dive under the hood of how the digital economy actually works. From AI bias to NFTs; fake news to two-sided markets; cryptocurrencies to quantum computing, Sinan and guests make sense of the lightning-fast changes taking place in the tech driven world —from a scientific perspective. Got a question for Sinan? Call and leave us a voicemail for a chance to have your question answered live on air during our "Ask me Anything" episodes: (617) 468-8423‬. Visit ide.mit.edu/podcast for more. Follow @sinanaral and @mit_ide on Twitter and @professorsinan and @mit_ide on Instagram.

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The Digital Insider with Sinan Aral

Renée DiResta: The Influence of Misinformation

October 11, 2022 • MIT IDE • Season 1 • Episode 9

Sinan welcomes guest, Renée DiResta, author, analyst, speaker and the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.

Renee investigates the spread of narratives across social and media networks, with an interest in understanding how platform algorithms and affordances intersect with user behavior and factional crowd dynamics. She led an investigation into the Russian Internet Research Agency’s multi-year effort to manipulate American society, and presented public testimony. Her work on influence operations and computational propaganda has led her to advising roles for US Congress and The State Department.

Topics Include:

Parenting, Vaccine Requirements for Kids and Activism (2:18-12:41)
Misinformation, Disinformation, Political Opinion and Social Media Polarization (12:49-21:24)
International Operations and Governmental Influence in Social and Broadcast Media (21:32-34:24)
Election Interference, Russia and Propaganda (34:32-38:28)
The Rise of Influencers (38:36-50:10)
Web3 and its Promise and Peril (50:18-58:19)
Solutions and Pros + Cons of Platform Transparency, Regulations and Policy (58:26-1:10:47)
How do we Prepare our Kids for The New Information Age - The Good, The Bad and Everything in Between (1:10:55-1:20:48)

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