Towards a Stronger Information Ecosystem

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hi everybody uh welcome and thanks forjoining us for our webinar todaymy name is vivian schiller i am theexecutive director of aspen digital weare a program of the aspen institutewe’re also the organization behind thecommission on information disorderthis is a group uh that we set up thatstarted earlier this yearwith the purpose of deeply examining themiss and dis information crisis in ourcountry and offer a set of actionablerecommendations for government theprivate sector and civil societythis morning the commission releasedtheir reportwe you can read the report via the linkwe’re about to drop in the chat butdon’t read it right now read it laterbecause we’re going to walk you throughall of the recommendations and take yourquestions and we’re going to be joinedby the three co-chairs of the commissionso just a one piece of housekeepingbefore we get started at any time duringthe program you can submit your questionusing the q a button at the bottom ofthe screen you must all be zoom pros bynow but just in case it’s at the bottomyou click on there please include yourname and affiliation if you arecomfortable doing so as it gives us somehelpful context again you can put thosequestions in anytime starting now eventhough we’re not going to get to them alittle bit lateruh before i introduce the threeco-chairs just a little bit of contextand then we’re going to get rolling thecommission is composed of threeco-chairs and 13 commissioners from across-section of society they areexperts and academics uh who think aboutthe broad aspects of informationdisorder from big tech to free speech tojournalism to social dynamics they havebeen meeting intensely since early aprilalmost all of that has been on soonexcept for a two-day meeting this summerin aspenuh there’s the picture if you want tosee uh that uh moment in time and weactually were togetherthe commission conducted over the courseof their work a deep academic reviewthey heard from and discussedall of the issues with expert brieferswe hosted 25 public dis and disinfodiscussions which are available asvideos or podcasts and our website andthey engaged with a group of worldrecognizedtechnical advisorslast summer the commission publishedtheir three priorities in an interimreport we’ll drop that link in as wellif you want to read that later but todaywe’re sharing the final report itcontains eight insights and 15recommendationsuh for now let’s meet the co-chairs whoare also the reports authors and thenwe’ll tell you a little bit more laterkatie couric is of course the notedjournalist and founder of katie couricmedia she is a recognized public healthadvocate who has received numerousawards for her cancer advocacy workand just last week became the number onenew york times best-selling author forher new memoir going there which ihighly recommendchris krebs is the founding director ofsysa the cyber security andinfrastructure security agency whereamong other achievements he pioneeredthe room and rumor control program whichwas designed to counter disinformationcampaigns he now serves as aspendigital’s senior newmark fellow forcyber security and he is the co-founderof the krebs stamos grouprashad robinson is president of color ofchange a leading racial justiceorganization with more than 7 millionmembersrashad is an accomplished advocate andcampaigner for black communitiesincluding actions that involve big techlike moving airbnb google and facebookto implementanti-racist initiativesso we are so glad to have you here todayco-chairs um we’re gonna start by uhasking each of you to speak a little bitabout the insights that drove the reportand then we’re going to run through therecommendations sorashad hello we’re going to start withyouuh the commission observed that theinformation that information disorder isand i’m quoting from the report now awhole of society problemwhat do you mean by that and why is itimportantwell it’s it’s all of our problemsbecause of its impact on all of us rightthis information is a symptom to thedisease of of the complex structuralinequalities that have plagued societyplayed society long before all of uswere here and continued and it’s atactic that is used um to take advantageof things um that are already broken andsometimes currently being broken um inour society racial bias genderinequality economic inequality thedecline in journalism and so much morewhen um accountability is lost oraccountability never existed um so manyof the norms that we should have to movethings forward don’t exist and soinformation disorder is a crisis thatexacerbates all other crises and becauseit prevents us in so many ways frombeing able to discuss important issueswith facts um and it keeps us in so manyways in our society from being able tocome together to solve big issues andthat is why in so many ways because it’simpact on everything else in society itis something that if we care about anyone of the major issues that we arefacing in our countrywe really do have to care aboutinformation disorderthanks uh rashad that was certainlyobviously one of the foundations of thereport katiethe decline of local media has calledout of the report so how does thatcontribute to the lack of trustand how does that advance disinformationuh thanks vivian and hi everyone youknow we looked at so at local newsbecauseit’s such an important part of awell-informed electorate and if peopledon’t know what’s going on in theircommunityuh they’re less than less likely to beinvolved in the democratic process to beinvolved in in local elections they’reless likely to know and and have anappetite and curiosity about what theirgovernment officials are doingright or wrong so obviously journalistsprovide a real safeguard againstcorruption by shining a spotlight on thebehavior of our elected officials andand again it’s it’s been shown thatpeople have who have vibrant local newssources are much more likely toparticipate in the election process sowe really wanted to figure out a way wecould shore up and help some of theselocal news organizations because since2004 and 2018 more than 2 000newspapers have folded 65 millionamericans are now left in so-called newsdeserts that’s one in five people whoaren’t getting good information and whenthat happens what fills the void a lotof other content and disinformation sowe really wanted to focus on umhow to bolster communities make themstronger more informed and moreinterested in not only what’s happeningin their own backyard but in the entirenation as well so that’s one of thereasons we focused on it and somethingthat i was certainly very interested inas someone who got her start in localnews and understands how it provides theglue for communities all over thecountrythanks katie in a minute we’ll talkabout the specific recommendations forlocal news chris you’ve been a leader indis and uh disinformation andmisinformation in governmentand frankly you paid a price for it inthe last administration so what does thecommission mean when it says therethere’s a need for leadership from theadministration what role should thegovernment play in combating informationdisorderyeah thanks uh for that and as as rashadmentioned in his earlier comments thisis a whole of society problems so yesthere’s uh civil society has a rolemedia has a role the private sector hasa role academia but of course governmenthas a role here and really what we needmore than anything i believe is isclarity of mission clarity of purposeas well as a clear integrated holisticstrategy so just to step back we’re notasking the government to step up andcertainly not establish some ministry oftruth or ministry of propaganda orspeech but the government has a rolejust like in any other national securityrelated issue and obviously uh the wayour adversaries areexploiting seems and division and sowingdoubt and mistrust in publicinstitutions we have an emergingnational security issue so i think it’sincumbent upon any administration theprior the current or any futureadministrations to be thinking aboutinformation disorder and disinformationspecificallyand and part of what what we really needis a stock taking of the roles andresponsibilities of the various agenciesuh in the executive branchand then identify any potentialauthorities gapsand make requests of the congress foradditional authorities if needed and andwerun the gamut here in ourrecommendations not just on what thefederal government needs to do from astrategic perspective but also potentialuh required transparencies for platformsand and other mechanisms to ensure thatthat we get the information we need toand to ensure that we have the abilityto change the incentive structures uhfor for uh the platformsgreat all right thanks chris and andthank you to all three of you so that’sthe context for the report what we’regoing to do now is walk everybodythrough the recommendations quickly umwe really encourage you to read the fullreport it’s really hard to summarizethem in just a few words but to do thatuh we’re turning uh things over to ryanmerkley he is the directorof the commission and he will present asummary and then we’re gonna move on tosome more questions including yourquestions reminder put your questions inthe q abutton on the bottom of your screen okayover to you ryanthanks vivianin its interim report last summer thecommission identified three prioritiesuh increasing transparency andunderstanding building trust andreducing harmsso you’ll see the 15 recommendationsframed within these three prioritiestoday i’m going to do my best to getthrough all of them in about eightminutesso the first priority group isincreasing transparency all of theseproposals call for new requirements onplatforms to disclose data and toprovide access to qualified researchersin the public interest the goal here isgreater transparency accountability andunderstandingthe first recommendation in this groupis public interest researchthis recommendation actually containstwo proposals the first about publicdata this recommendation calls for newprotections for researchers andjournalists who access data throughonline platforms largely throughscraping or other means to do publicinterest research which often forcesthem to violate the terms of service ofthose platforms now this responds to theincreasing number of cases whereresearchers are using this kind ofpublicly accessible data from socialmedia and are being blocked by theplatforms a most recent example is thenyu researchers who were blocked fromfacebook while trying to study politicaladvertising the second part proposal inthis group is about private datanow this proposal would requireplatforms to provide access to someprivate datafor two qualified researchers working inthe public interest while still tryingto protect user privacy and platformintegrity nate personally has a recentproposal that is referenced actually aspart of the recommendation as apotential solution to challen uh to thissort of challenge and the recommendationwould give safe harbor to the platformswho met this disclosure requirement forthe research that was then produced bythose third party researchersnext is high reach content disclosurethe recommendation requires platforms topublish information about high-reachcontent including the account reach andimpression data this kind of data isstill hard to access on many platformsbut it’s essential to understanding howdisinformation spreads and who is beingtargetednext is content moderation platformdisclosure this recommendation wouldrequire the platforms to disclose theircontent moderation policies andpractices and to share a time-limitedarchive of the content that is beingtaken down as a result of those policiesthe platform performance on contentmoderation is opaque at best in theworst cases some users get preferredtreatment when they violate thosepolicies disclosure is a basic step toaccountability in this areanow a content archive available toauthorize researchers with safeguards toprotect user privacy and safetyis meant to respond to the documentedissues we’ve seen like human rightsabuses where content that has beenremoved because of moderation is thenlost to those who would want to holdthose people accountable for their postslast in this group is add transparencythis recommendation will requireplatforms to disclose information aboutall paid ads and paid promoted posts ontheir platforms the recommendation leansstrongly into the good work of lauraedelson and her colleagues on digital adtransparency and references theirproposal this would help identify whichcommunities are being targeted by whichcontentand that allows an opportunity foradditional understanding andaccountability there would be a commonstandard for this kind of transparencyas well as the creation of a repositoryfor that data to be archived to beaccessiblethe second priority is building trustthe recommendations in this section kindof take it up a level and with a moresystemic societal view of some of theproblemsthey build on the inside of thecommission that disinformation does notexist on its own it is a symptomthat takes advantage of larger issueswithin societyfirst in this group is truth andtransformation this recommendationendorses established models foraddressing historical imbalances ofpower access and equity that are all toooften exploited with disinformationwe can’t move forward as a society if wecan’t agree on the truth and we can’ttalk about what’s dividing usefforts to seek truth and reconciliationhave been proven in over 50 countriesaround the world including right in theu.s there are established models likethe truth racial healing andtransformation framework to helpcommunities come together around acommon set of facts and to createhealthy connections this is slowcommunity-based work but it’sfundamental to repairing the cracks inour societynext in this group is healthy digitaldiscoursethe commission endorsed the developmentand scale of communications toolsnetworks and platforms that are designedto bring us together and createhealthier discourse and trust now thehope here is not only viablealternatives to the prevailing businessmodels that optimize for ads andattention but also the development ofbest practices for these kinds ofservices to help increase trust andempathy when we engage together onlineand the recommendations cite severalexamples of existing projects as modelsto look to next is workforce diversitythis recommendation asks for increasedinvestment and transparency in diversityefforts in the newsroom and social mediacompanies especially in leadershipand diversity in newsrooms and inleadership at tech companies in themedia is sorely lacking more diverserepresentation expands the aperture ofdecision makers and would help tomitigate the issues and policies or inproducts that are disproportionatelyaffecting underrepresented groupstwo more in this group actually threemore in this group uh local mediainvestment which katie talked aboutearlier this recommendation calls forsubstantial long-term investment torestore local journalism people needlocal news they can trust it’s one ofthe best antidotes to the echo chamberof national cable newsthe commission seeks more philanthropicinvestment in local media and exploredideas around an advertising tax and taxcredits to provide needed resources tolocal journalismnext in this group is accountabilitynorms now this recommendation askscommunities and leaders to step up andto promote norms that create personaland professional consequences forindividuals who are violating theirpublic trustwe can’t use laws and regulation toaddress every issue especially while weseek to uphold the uphold the values offree speech and while societal normshave shifted to allow lies to spreadwith few consequences communities andnetworks can still use norms to createaccountability and motivate betterbehavior and encourage better behaviora couple of examples to make thisconcrete professional standards bodieslike medical associations should holdtheir members accountable when theyshare false health information with thepublic for profitadvertisers can withhold advertisingfrom platforms whose practices fail toprotect their customers from harmfulmisinformationand journalists can explore newprofessional practices that foregroundfact-based information or refuse topublish lies and ensure that they givereaders the context when high-profileindividuals attempt to mislead thepubliclast in this group is the electioninformation security this recommendationseeks to improve u.s election securitythrough education transparency andbetter systems the focus here is onstrengthening our electoral systems butalso in educating the public so they aremore resilient to the false accusationsthat are designed to discredit theprocess from voting systems topost-election auditsthe final priority is reducing harms thecommission recognized that it’s notpossible to eradicate all misinformationthese recommendations focus oninterventions that will reduce thegreatest harms and address the worstactorsfirst is a comprehensive federalapproach this recommendation calls inthe white house to establish acomprehensive strategic approach todisinformation there are too many partsof government trying to own this issuebut no one person or department oragency has clear responsibility thislack of leadership is hampering effortsand slowing things down this is notabout new powers it’s about a clearstrategy and identifying who is leadingon which parts of itnext is a public restoration fund thisrecommendation would establish anindependent nonprofit organizationfocused on education research andinvestment in local institutions tocreate counter measures todisinformation this builds on successfulindependent public health focusedinitiatives like the truth initiativewhich was designed to help reducetobacco usage amongst young peoplenext is civic empowerment thisrecommendation seeks to empower users byinvesting and innovating in onlineeducation and product features the goalhere is to give users the skills and thecontext to safely navigate low qualityand polarizing content online thecommission also calls for collaborationwith the platforms amongst externalresearchers practitioners and civilsociety representatives who can bringindependent expertise and perspectivesto the design and functionality of theplatformsnext is super spreader accountabilityhigh reach should be seen as a publictrust not an opportunity to break therules the commission recommends thatplatforms focus some portion of theirmoderation efforts on highly visiblecontent and on high reach accounts thatrepeatedly spread harmful misinformationthat could lead to significant harmsincluding public health and threatsagainst democracythe goal here is a consistentmethodology that implements a negligenceframework on high reach accounts holdingthem to a higher standard withtransparency and enforcementfinally and the last recommendation isaround section 230. this recommendationcontains two distinct proposals thefirst addresses immunity on ads and paidpromotion of posts and the secondfocuses on product features likealgorithmic recommendations on paid adsad tools can be used to targetcommunities and amplify harmful contentcommissioncommissioners felt that the techplatforms should have the same liabilityfor ad content as television networks ornewspapers which would then require themto take appropriate steps to ensure thatthose ads met the same standards forpaid advertising as in other industrieson the product side proposal thisproposal responds to platform’s tendencyto use section 230 as a defense when theclaims are about their product and howit works which is not the intent of 230.examples of the kinds of things thatwould no longer be protected under thisproposal are algorithms that recommendmembership in groups accounts to followor connections between users and themechanisms that allow for thenon-organic amplification of content orexplicit choices made by platformemployees to highlight contentthat is a quick rapid fire run throughof the recommendations we’ll do our bestto take any questions you have andplease do post them in the chat if youhave one vivian back to you thank you somuch and yeah a reminder drop yourquestions in the chat they’re startingto come in apologies that we won’t getto all of them do put your name inaffiliation if you feel comfortabledoing so um i’m going to pose a coupleof questions myself to the co-chairs andthen we’re going to take yours we have alittle bit of time but before we do ijust also wanted to mention that therelease of this report is not the endof uh this work in fact it’s really justthe beginning the idea is that all ofthese recommendations our hope is thatthey all take flight they’re all aimedat different entities and it will takewe’ve heard us use the term poll ofsociety over and over again these arevery muchwhole of society uh solutions and itwill take all of us to implement thembut there’s all kinds of things wheredid start getting started with forinstance our west coast incubator theaspen tech policy hub just announcedjust now um a75 000 information disorder prizecompetition it’s a competition thatseeks to fund projects that work towardsone or more of the commission’s 15recommendations and we are dropping someinformation about that in the chat nowbut there’s much much more to comeokay let’s uh so you’ve heard all therecommendations no doubt you areabsorbing them you’ve got the report ifyou want to reference uhuh those recommendationsum please get your questions ready buti’m gonna i’m gonna start so katie firstone’s for you there there are a lot ofgroups that have looked at mis and disinformation um this group has someexperts from that spacebut some of the commissioners are notspecifically academics who focus on thistopic so so why set it up that waywell i’m glad you brought that up vivianbecause that’s something that was reallyimportant to the three of us and toeveryone on the commission there hasbeen so much fantastic workthat we deeply respect in this area andsobefore we actually set off to doanything we wanted to talk to some ofthose people so as you mentionedwe have briefings from academics frompeople all across the spectrum and oneof the things we really wanted toemphasize in this report is this hasbeen built on the hard work of many manypeople who have been studying this issuefor some time so you know in terms ofthe makeup of the commission itself ithink just to reiterate what rashad andfrisk have already saidthis is such a huge multi-prong problemyou know it’s a problem involvingconsumer habits and how they’rereally ingesting news how it’s changedso dramatically since the days when istarted out in journalism when therewere justa small number of outlets deliveringinformation as rashad has helped meunderstand those weren’t necessarily thegood old days because they silenced anddid not give outlets to so manymarginalized people so we shouldn’tnecessarily be too nostalgic about thosedays but you know it involves thebifurcated media landscape on cable itinvolves enragement engagement throughenragement and sort of this intersectionbetween psychology and technology andviewer habits um it involves as imentioned uh local news and local newsdeserts media literacy it involves howwe’re taught history in this countrywhen it comes to truth andreconciliation and the kind of the thefacts that we understand them which arenot accurate in terms of our ownuh own history in this country so wefelt that having peoplefrom uh a broad spectrum of backgroundsyou know someone like rashad who hasworked sointimately in in issues of race andclass and really understands how thatthat has permeated every aspect of civilsociety including disinformation someonelike chris who’s worked so intimately ingovernment someone like me who’s been injournalism for a long time and i feellike the people who’ve been on thecommission brought everybody broughtsomething different to the table andit’s not just a problem with techplatforms as i said so to have somebodywho’s just focused on solely thati think wouldn’t bring intouh focusall the ancillary issues thatdisinformation uh involves sothat’s one of the reasons we put thiscommission together and vivian i couldask you that question because you’re theone you’re the one that asked usuh so um you know but i think we wereally had a very uh committedcross-section of people who care deeplyabout this issue and understand theimpact and how truth decay as the randcorporation describes it is reallyundermining our democracy in the mostserious of waysyeah thank you thank you katie and i andi want to say thank you to you and allthe commissioners i i think i may haveunderestimated how much time you wereall going to need to put into it sosorry about all of thatand thank you all right chris umthe report um seems to contain a warningto corporate leaders that they have arole to play in addressing these issueswe’re talking about the private sectorthe private sector i mean aside from thetech companies obviously there’s a lotabout them but there’s the entireprivate sector as well umwe say you say that disinformation iscoming for them tooso what role does the private corporatesector have to play here and what shouldthey be doing and what should they beworried aboutso i think we’ve got three aspects hereand and again going back to i likealways pointing back to the smart thingsthat rashad always says but this is awhole society issue that and we needeveryone to be engaged not justgovernment not just the platforms butthe broader private sector sofirst point i think is that corporateleaders can consistently rank high onthe edelman trust barometer they’retrusted voices right and so we need uhyou know they when they had theopportunity to weigh in uh and provide ameasured voice into a narrative or aconversation they should do thatthe second thing is is we we canprobably take advantage of this emergingesg movement across boards andinvestments that’s environmental socialand governance where we’re thinking morebroadly about not just shareholderresponsibility but also stakeholderresponsibilities and so when a companyis thinking about where to put theiradvertising dollars they need to bethoughtful about the platforms in theplaces in which they advertise and isthat an environment is that a form isthat a feature that they want to beassociated with and you know ultimatelywhen you unpack the current informationdisorder it really just boils down tothree different things as i see it atleast it’s power it’s influence and it’smoney and if you’ve got the money youtend to have a significant amount ofleverage in terms of uhininfluence the third piece that i wouldsuggest is thatultimately companies are going to be inthe crosshairs of disinformationcampaigns we’re increasingly seeingdisinformation as a service as you lookback over the last year or so and youlook at some of the pharmaceuticalcompanies uh us and other westerncompanies have been targeted through anumber of fairly sophisticateddisinformation campaigns and potentiallytied back to foreign uh foreigncompanies and foreign governments thatare seeking to undermine confidence inthose vaccines so every company not justhas to be thinking about the brand andreputation piece but also how might theybe targetedultimately by a bad actor and you haveto build in corporate responses andcorporate strategiesfor this increasingly complex andchaotic environmentthanks so it’s aboutproactively being a good actor avoidingbeing a bad actor and avoiding being avictim and to be prepared uh thank yourashad um you know every discussionaboutmiss and disinformation eventuallyends up uh with the topic of free speechin the first amendmentum this was a big topic of longconversation many times with thecommission how how did the commissionaddress this in the reportyou know in many ways the question of uhfree speech is a is kind of a bit of astraw man in some ways because i thinkit it confusesum or misdirects us from what we’reactually trying to do here you know thefirst amendment is essential it’s anessential element of national discourseas a racial justice leader and a civilrights leader i need the first amendmentum in order to do the work that we doevery single day and so i think all ofus in different ways umkatie and chris and all the othercommissioners are every single day umyou know appreciative of a society wherewe have these type of rights and at thesame time we um wanted to make sure thatwe even doubled down um and so in termsof our thinking and our understanding sothe commission spoke um with firstamendment experts sort of across theboard we even have one um on on thecommission who really helped us developthese recommendations to think aboutsort of the impact that we were havingin the world and to make sure we weren’trunning afoul of um of the firstamendment you know i think about all ofthe ways in which this country has movedcivil rights forward and sometimes theways in which the first amendment wasused by those who wanted to stand in theway of uh thethe um sort of progress um that weneeded to achieve things like uh freedomof assembly um and freedom of accesswere sort of um ways in which we had tobuild laws and rules um so freedom ofspeech does not mean that we have tolive in a society void of rules thatallow us to be able to live togetherwork together it doesn’t mean that wehave to live in a society um that isfree that is sort of um full ofdisinformation where um lies sort ofoutnumber the truth and where bad actorscan profit and exploit communitieswithout uh repercussions i’m within thatlegal framework um there have alwaysbeen regulations to protect the publicfrom harm and to protect the public fromthose incentivized to do harm and we areworking well within that framework notoutside of that framework and i thinkthat was the beauty of having such adiverse range of voices at the table adiverse range of expertise and that isalso at the heart of so much of whatyou’ll read especially when you look atthe beginning of the report andthroughout the report where weabsolutely call for leadership across awide range of sectors in this countryand the need for clearenergized forceful um leadership thattakes this issue on um and to not allowus uh to be confused by the strawmanalong the way that i think get us offtrackthanks rashad and umand uh yeah you mentioned one of ourcommissioners jamil joffer the executivedirector of the knight first amendmentinstitute at columbia university umwas was a big part and very very much abig voice in in in all issues aroundfree speech and the first amendment ashe should be all right we are now goingto go to your questions um we’ve alreadyreceived quite a few uh please you cancontinue to submit them we are reviewingall of them put them in the q a functionat the bottom of your screen add yourname and your affiliation if you’recomfortable doing so we’ll get to asmany as we can so let’s get started umthe first first step umstarting starting with ananonymous questioner but that’s okay umso the uh the questionnaire says thankyou for your work and mentions thatprince harry uh the person writes one ofyour commissioners said this is ahumanitarian crisisthe question is would you saymisinformation and disinformation shouldbe one of the urgent issues of globalimportance alongside vaccine equity andclimate changeso um rashad i’m going to direct thatone at you if that’s okaywell when i opened up and i talked aboutmy first answer when i talked about it’san issue that impacts all other issuesbecause it prevents us from having thefacts and the information it prevents usbeing for being able to come togetherand solve big issues together we can’tdivorce um vaccine access and climatefrom missing disinformation in many waysmissing disinformation undergirds somany of the challenges that we arehaving in our society and so i don’tthink of it as you have miss anddisinformation over here and then youhave all these other issues that we’redealing with society over there what youhave is um a pers is a persistentproblem that needs urgent attention thatis impacting sort of our way of lifeacross the board and of course missingdisinformation is not new it’s not a newproblem but all of the ways in which uhtechnology and the sort of current statethat we’re in moves um these moves um ata sort of deeper speed um the challengesthat we’re having around missingdisinformation um it makes the crisiseven more urgent it makesum the problems that we’re facing evenharder to deal with and it exacerbatesissues um and it pervades puts barriersin our way of solving problems and sothese problems are absolutely connectedum and just like we need urgentleadership on the issues um that theperson answered ask a question aboutmissing disinformation will prevent usfrom being able to solve them and and ijust would like to jump in you know whenwe were talking about this for thereport i meanit’s not only precluding us from solvingsome of our most intractable problemsbut it’s actually fueling things likeyou knowa coup and myanmar so it’s being used invery very malevolent ways so it’s beingactively incorporated obviously by bybad actors but also preventing us fromhaving the information we need to haveany kind of consensus on a whole host ofproblems soum you know when we talked about the thethe attacks and we’re talking aboutviolence in the report that’s somethingthat we wanted to point out as wellrashad right absolutely absolutelyokay let’s move on to the next questionum this is from courtney raj fromarticle 19. hi courtney um she asks aquestion that actually is similar tosome there was a been a number ofquestions that are about internationalimplications the latinx communitylanguages uh but i’m going to usecourtney’s question sort of as a as aas an umbrella for all of those um sheasked the report of some important andrefreshingly specific recommendationsbut is completely us centric despite theinternational dynamics of infra demixand our information ecosystem wherecould or did international norms on freeexpressionprivacy etcetera figure in and againthis is not me not now me talking out ofrespect for all the other questionsbasically you know why us only whatabout the rest of the worldchris i’m going to direct that one toyou yeah i think this is a fair questioni think given the mandate and the remitof the commission given the makeupgenerally of the commissioners and thetime frame we had wedecided we made the executive decisionup front thatthis would be a u.s centric approachhowever i think as you rightly point outthese are global issues and so whateverfollows from here particularly from aroad map perspective and subsequentengagement we have to make sure thatthere is uh there’s parity and comedy uhbetween u.s decisions uh regulationenforcement as well as uh elsewhere andi’ve spent a significant amount of timeover the last several months uh workingwith uh eu partners in fact i was justin brussels last week talking to natoi’ve briefed the european commission nowtwicein part on the work we’re doing here aswell as the impact of disinformation onuh elections so i think it’s criticallyimportant that whatever happens next isthat there is coordination andstrategizing betweenuh partners and and there are a numberof different ways for that to happenlike natoinc as well as the g7 and elsewhereyeah and i should say that uh uh we arelooking at options of how we how thiswork can be extended to uh beyond thebordersof the us so i appreciate that questionas well as as well as language issues soso thank you for everybody that askedsimilar questions the next one is fromjack buchanan of the belfor center atharvarduh he asks i know the senate has showninterest in recognizing disinformationas a national problem but does the panelthink there is sufficient unity inwashington to drive positive outcomeshe thinks that might be a little bit ofa rhetorical question but i’m going topose it to the commissionersuh jack i feel like you’ve asked me thisquestion beforeumi i look and i’ll i’m i’m happy to takea stab at this one first and i’d love tohear rashaan and katie’s perspective buti i do think that if there is any uhsingle issue that uh republicans anddemocrats alike uh have expressed someconcern about it’s the tech platformsit’s social media uh and in particularuh disinformation or fake news dependingon how you wanna call it so i do thinkthere is room for uh discussion uh anddevelopment of some sort of legislativepath forward uh what that looks likeultimately is it gonna be a a grandcompromise and is it gonna achieve allthe things that i think we asked forhere in the uh in this report absolutelynot but there are attainable achievableuh objectives and i thinkat a minimumuh the transparency requirements thatwe’ve laid out in this reportare uh are reasonable they they are notoverly draconian they are certainly uhwe could have gone much further but wewe thought that there was there wereactionable umimmediately actionable requirements hereuh that we laid out so i do thinkthere’s work and there was anotherquestion i saw vivian in the queue ofhow are we working with the congress onthis well you know we’ve briefed variousuhparts of the executive branch and we’vebriefed members of congress and staffand i think that’s really the next stepis working with members of congressworking with other non-profits andadvocacy groups and developing draftlegislation and texts and seeing whatthe agenda looks likemost likely towards the end of this yearor next yearokay the next uh there’s also we’retrying to cluster similar questions soforgive me because we’re getting manymany more than we could possibly get touh so uh i’m gonna i’m gonna sort ofparaphrase a cluster of questions thatwe got from michelle atwater and othersand and katie maybe direct this to youthough i’m happy for anybody else tojump in basically uh the questions areabout the fact that people are sopolarized and so divided how do we getpeople to come back together and agreeon a common set of facts this isparticularly apropos in advance ofthanksgiving family reunionsi think i think this really undercursedthe whole you know problem in our oursociety and in our culture this thisuh you know that facts aren’t facts oreveryone is entitled there to their ownfacts and i think that’s that is a greatquestion i think some of it has to dowithum you know coming together as acommunityuhtrying to create less social isolation ithink that a lot of disinformation andand this problem uhwas exacerbated and and and more deeplyentrenched as a result of the pandemicwhere so many people were spending somuch time onlinesoyou know maybe it’s a little pollyannaof me to to think but i do think if youread together byyou know a a book that was written bythethe surgeon general uh vivek murthytalking about social isolation i thinkkind of reestablishing community normswhere different people from differentbackgrounds actually get together andinterfaceum you knowsomebody once told me after i did adocumentary on on transgender peopleit’s hard to hate up closeand i think that people who do havecontact with actual human beings andand appreciate our common humanityuh may be more open to these kinds ofconversation i think isolation again hasexacerbated the problem um and i alsothink media literacy is a reallyimportant part of this too that’ssomething that we kind of took as along-term goalreally being a a very educated consumerlike sy sims used to say is our bestcustomer i think somebody needs to knowwhere they’re getting the informationthey need to knowwhere that came from the source of itand and they need the tools i think it’sit’s an extra step and maybe some of theplatforms i’m a big proponent for theplatforms trying to help people withthat task instead of leading it them totheir you know spend more time to kindof unravel the the information ordisinformation chain but media literacyi think is is a big important part ofthis as well but that you knowhow do youhow do you take these deeply entrenchedsides that are the loudest and by theway there’s a huge swath of people whoare not on either side of the politicalspectrum um and and how do you bringthem together to come up with someconsensus on what is truth and was itwhat isn’t and i think that’s that’s oneof the biggest challenges of ourlifetimesand and we do that the commission doesreport does talk uh quite a bit about amedia literacy umuh thank you katie uh uh rashad this isa good one from you from susan pfeifferhow can we stop advertisers fromcontinuing to advertise on broadcaststations that continue to distributefalse information if they have largeaudiences that advertisers want to reachso i think this this is a couple ofthings this is we have to holdadvertisers accountable you know thisalso goes back toum the earlier question that you know umchris took as well about uh congress andabout uh washington all of this requiresaction from all of us as well you knowthe thethe um you know 16 of uscame together the co-chairs and the umcommission to spend you know the betterpart of a year really looking at theseproblems and working with experts um youknow across the country and reallytrying to and across the world andtrying to really figure outum sort of a path forward but it’s areport and what that actually requiresin the sort of world of social change isthat it requires people to get behindthese demands it’s going to require allof us to hold advertisers and pushadvertisers to do different it’s gonnapush us um if we’re inside ofinstitutions like medical associationsor legal associations or otheraccrediting bodies to push those bodiesto uh think differently about how wehold accountable the folks inside ofthose institutions that are doing harmit’s gonna require all of us to push ourelected officials to take this issueseriously and put energy behind actuallysolving these problemspart of um what we recognize um i thinkis um is that you know while weabsolutely need policies uh while weabsolutely need um frameworks um theycan just sit on a shelf um and collectdust if if all of us don’t get in motionand so you know as someone who hasbeen part of leading the one of thelargest boycotts in american history tostop hate for profit campaign um againstfacebook in 2020 which was an ad pauseof a month um we also just have torecognize that there are business modelsand incentive structures behind allthese companies and that is why um theselist of demands need to be looked attogether no single sort ofrecommendation alone is a silver bulletbut taken together i think um both sortof the ways in which we as a public cando better and make demands the ways inwhich we need our government to engagein product umand holding accountable around policiesaround product and around incentivestructure business model all of thesethings are incredibly important andtaken together will hopefully create uma new path forward and so i thinkthere’s a lot that we can do um to holdadvertisers accountable and then thereare ways with some of these companiesthat the business models actuallypresent prevent us from being able toactually do a whole lot with advertisersall of these things i think areincredibly important moving forward umand all of them all the ways in which wemove forward will need the public um tomake demands on its leaders and we’llneed our leaders to actually leadif i can jump in here as well i thinkwhen you look at the recommendations intheir totality you’ll see that theyactually fit together a bit like puzzlepiecesto the point of executives in the roleof corporations we’re also bysetting forth some recommendations fortransparency requirements on theplatforms part what we’re trying to dois make more informed consumersthe way the platforms operate right nowit is not in a transparent way we do notknow what their uh parameters for uh youknow the preferred or optimized outcomesof the various algorithms and mechanismsbehind uh behind the scenes so byopening that up to researchers andjournalists we can have a more informedconsumer base and thenthe you start seeing thatthe the economic pressures mount up andsay okay that is not going to beacceptable behavior look i you know whenyou look at the last several months andsome of the disclosures from facebookwe got more informationand then you also have other lawsuitsthat have had information about uh ifyou recalldirectv a t and umin oan i made personal decisions on whatsubscriptions i have that’s what we’retrying to get out here is moreinformation so the consumers can makebetter decisions with their own dollarsbecause otherwise we’re living in a bitof a information vacuum hereokay um next question um have theplatforms this is from an anonymousuh questioner have the platforms twitterfacebook google responded to the reportand how were they represented how weretheir views represented on thecommission i’m actually going to answerthe first one because i don’t think thatcommissioners probably have had a chanceto even take a look uhat that and say first of all we um wehave briefed twitter facebook and googleon the recommendations um in advancethere was no uh we were not trying tomake a gotcha here we wanted them toknow um what was coming and to respondand um obviously they don’t necessarilyagree with everything but the respondwas pretty positive and we’re going tobe trying to work with the best we canto advance some of the recommendationsas far as how they were representedin the commission and had a voice umichris you want to just talk briefbriefly about thatyeah so when you step back and you thinkabout the role of the platforms ininformation disorder generally they havea they’ve had a role certainlyencountering foreign disinformation overthe last several years i’vehad the opportunity to work with anumber of different platforms onspecifically foreign interferencein the 2018 you know post-2016 electionthe 2018 and the 2020 election so therethey’ve made significant progress instrides particularly where it’s it’s abit uh much more clear uh on the theterms of service and the uh the the uhthe expertise of the platforms againdisrupting foreign disinformationoperations but again there’s asignificant amount of room that we haveto make up here domestically and i thinkthe platforms would benefit from clarityuh in certainly legal clarity uh setforth by congress on what’s expected ofthem i mean certainty is always a goodthing when you’re a corporate lawyerwhen you have to make decisions it makesthose trade-offs a lot clearer to makethanks chris um katie i’m going todirect this next one uhuh to you from an anonymous um uh viewerwho asks the findings andrecommendations are all fighting fineand good but and i’m quoting here whatthe heck can should we do about fox thisis a serious question i’m going to nowthis is me talking i’m going to assumethey’re talking aboutuh prime time fox and some of the missand disinformation that is propagated bythose showsthat’s a great question um i think thatyou know we we’ve talked about thatbecause we did not really die do a deepdive into cable news um which hasincreasingly become as everyone knowscommentary versus actual news reportingum especially in the prime time hoursandyou know the only thing i can say aboutthis is um you know it’s a it’s a topicthat actually needs deeper explorationand it’s something that isincredibly troubling we were talkingabout the broad audiences where you knowa lot of advertisers have actuallypulled off showsuh for various reasons and there havebeen boycotts of some of these foxprograms but this is whenleadership is truly required we talkedat the beginning about the fact thatthere is a lack of leadership a lack ofseriousness taken when people uhperpetuate falsehoods um and certainlyfox news is one of the biggest defendersand we would hope that some of theleaders of fox news while they try todistance themselves from certain uhyou know certain rhetoric thatis is used on some of their shows thatwe would hope that they would bestronger about that when it comes tomisinformation but i think it is a wholeproblem within the cable news landscapethat that um as media has splinteredthese cable news outlets know that theyneed to get a a captive audience andoften those people are looking foraffirmation not informationand they’re also uh you knowhaving engagement through enragement asmy friend kara swisher often says soagain that’s that kind of intersectionof psychology and technology so you knowthis is a serious problem i don’t knowif the fcc can get more involved ifleadership and and government uh youknow which chris can speak to can getmore involved corporations again can getmore involved and if the leadership ofthese organizations can take a look attheyou know the the detrimental impact thiskind of information has had on societyat large because it’s not just on cableit then gets permeated into the digitalecosystem so it it its impact iswide-ranging and then the way the youknow media works now people just repeatand rewrite falsehoodsand um under their own umbrella soyou know i think serious leadership ithink there should be even sort ofuh you know some kind of consortiumabout from concerned media leaders tofigure out you know how do we handlethis this terrible bifurcation and alsoas i said the perpetuation of just purefalsehoods on some of these networkschris what do you think about the fccgetting more involvedwell i i think this is a uh this is anarea that requires a significant amountof policy debate um i don’t think we’vehad an honest policy debate on you knowjust because it’s uncomfortable we do wedon’t want totease these questions out i do thinkthough um that there are a few legalactions in play right now that may havean influence on how some of these uh howsome of the networks make programmingdecisions you think about the in thewake of the 2020 election uh companieslike dominion voting system smartmatichave filed suit against a number ofdifferent networks and we’re not talkinga couple million dollars we’re talkinglike 1.3 to 2.6 billionand andthey’re going to take it to the endthey’re not going to settle uh whetherthey have there’s a you know a goodargument for defamation or or tortiousinterference or some other sort ofcontractissue here remains to be seen i thinkone of my biggest concerns is thatthat’s going to take a long time to sortthose lawsuits out it’s going to takeyears and years and in the meantime thedamage doneto democracyit has been has been levied and it youcan’t unring the bell uh so we need tocontinue pressing on these platforms inthe in those in the the networks to makeresponsible decisions and programmingand advertisingyeah the only thing i want to add is ithink what you’re hearing here isunderscores how um how many barriersactually stand in the way of change andhow hard this is going to be and whyit’s an all of society problem what iknow about this problem is someone who’sled campaigns to actually hold some ofthese um actors accountable um on theseplatforms is that the business model fora place like fox news has actuallychanged over the last several years andso you actually can’t make the type ofprogress you would make by havingadvertisers leave because the businessmodel has shifted where now the moneycomes from cable subscriptions and youcan’t just go to a la carte cablesubscriptions automatically because thatwould then put certain other communitiesstations at a disadvantage of being ableto grow in new communities from beingable to get stations on and so these areall very complicated issues and that ithink is what um as we all came togetherand worked to solve these problems andwhile we recognized the important roleof leadership um which is why i was youknow so incredibly proud to work withthese two leaders as co-chairs but alsothe entire aspen team but also why we’regoing to meet all of you all the peoplewho are watching people who are involvedand connected to networks people whowork and engage withorganizations um doing mediaaccountability work social justice workgood government work we’re going to needas many people involved in solving thisproblem because the path to actuallymaking real change is going to requireall of us to walk itthank you rashad uh gosh we’ve had somany questions and we’re we only have aminute left i’m going to take 30 secondsto quicklyumuh pull out one more question that wereceived and answer it myself becauseit’s so important and it’s and it andit’s a follows on from what rashad justsaid the question is from michellesioulalipkin forgive me if i’ve mangled yourname who writes hi i’m the executivedirector of the national association formedia literacy education i reallyappreciate the work of the commission weare a national network that alreadyexists and has existed for 25 years ourcommunity is filled with educatorsresearchers and organizations committedto this work why create something fromscratch when successful networks alreadyexist i love this question and here’swhy the point of this work the point ofthis workis that it is uh we are trying toelevate the good work all over thecountry of everybody who is touchingsome part of information disorder and toshine a light and to lift you up it’snot to replace your work it’s to elevateyour work somichelle uh we uh want to do whatever wecan to support you and all the otherorganizations and the academics and theinstitutions that we’ve heard for andwith that um we are pretty much out oftime so um i just uh want to mentionagain the tech policy hub challengeprizeum which we will drop the link um backin the chat right now and to say uhthank you so much and again this is thebeginning not the end thank you so muchto the co-chairs and all of thecommissioners into the aspen team andhave a great dayyou

Following months of expert consultation and internal discussion, the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder has launched its recommendations for addressing America’s urgent mis- and disinformation crisis.

Co-chairs Katie Couric, Chris Krebs, and Rashad Robinson engage in a lively discussion of how government, private industry, and civil society can increase transparency and understanding, build trust, and reduce harms. The conversation covers what the Commission’s recommendations are, how they were selected, and what comes next.

Speakers

• Katie Couric, Journalist and Founder, Katie Couric Media
• Chris Krebs, Founding Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Senior Newmark Fellow in Cybersecurity Policy, Aspen Digital; Co-Founder, Krebs Stamos Group
• Rashad Robinson, President, Color Of Change
• Vivian Schiller, Executive Director, Aspen Digital

Katie Couric

Journalist and Founder, Katie Couric Media

Katie Couric is an award-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author and a co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). Since its launch in 2008, Stand Up To Cancer has raised more than $600 million to support cutting-edge collaborative science and its research has contributed to six new FDA approved therapies. In 2017, she founded Katie Couric Media (KCM), which has developed a number of media projects, including a daily newsletter, a podcast, digital video series and several documentaries. KCM works with purpose driven brands to create premium content that addresses important social issues like gender equality, environmental sustainability and mental health. She has won a duPont-Columbia, a Peabody, two Edward R. Murrows, a Walter Cronkite Award, and multiple Emmys. She was twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and was a Glamour Magazine woman of the year three times. She has also received numerous awards for her cancer advocacy work; honored by both the Harvard and Columbia schools of public health, the American Cancer Society and The American Association of Cancer Researchers. Her memoir “Going There” is a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Chris Krebs

Founding Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Senior Newmark Fellow in Cybersecurity Policy, Aspen Digital; Co-Founder, Krebs Stamos Group

Christopher Krebs is a founding partner of the Krebs Stamos Group, and previously served as the first director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). As Director, Mr. Krebs oversaw CISA’s efforts to manage risk to the nation’s businesses and government agencies, bringing together partners to collectively defend against cyber and physical threats. At CISA, Mr. Krebs also pioneered the Rumor Control program, which was designed to counter disinformation campaigns. Before serving as CISA Director, Mr. Krebs served in various roles at the Department of Homeland Security, responsible for a range of cybersecurity, critical infrastructure and national resilience issues. Prior to his time at DHS, he directed U.S. cybersecurity policy for Microsoft, and advised industry and government clients on complex cybersecurity and business risk matters, while serving at positions with Obsidian Analysis and Dutko Consulting. He also served in the George W. Bush Administration, advising DHS leadership on domestic and international risk management and public-private partnership initiatives.

Rashad Robinson

President, Color Of Change

Rashad Robinson is President of Color Of Change, a leading racial justice organization with more than 7 million members. Rashad designs winning strategies to build power for Black communities: moving prosecutors to reduce mass incarceration and police violence; forcing over 100 corporations to abandon the right-wing policy shop, ALEC; forcing corporations to stop supporting Trump initiatives and white nationalists; winning net neutrality as a civil rights issue; changing representations of race in Hollywood; moving Airbnb, Google and Facebook to implement anti-racist initiatives; forcing Bill O’Reilly off the air. Rashad appears regularly in major news media and as a keynote speaker nationally. He was among the first in a global cohort of Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity, and writes a monthly column about race, politics and corporate accountability for The Guardian. Previously, Rashad served as Senior Director of Media Programs at GLAAD. Rashad is currently the Co-Chair of the Aspen Commission on Information Disorder and serves on the boards of the Hazen Foundation and Marguerite Casey Foundation.

Vivian Schiller

Executive Director, Aspen Digital

Vivian Schiller is the Executive Director of Aspen Digital. A longtime executive at the intersection of journalism, media and technology, Schiller has held executive roles at some of the most respected media organizations in the world. Those include: President and CEO of NPR; Global Chair of News at Twitter; General Manager of NYTimes.com; Chief Digital Officer of NBC News; Chief of the Discovery Times Channel, a joint venture of The New York Times and Discovery Communications; and Head of CNN documentary and long form divisions. Documentaries and series produced under her auspices earned multiple honors, including three Peabody Awards, four Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards, and dozens of Emmys. Schiller is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and a Director of the Scott Trust, which owns The Guardian.