ICWA and the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group held a Zoom discussion on how Covid-19 is weakening our tools against the spread of disinformation.
As the death toll mounts and economies plummet into recession, disinformation could cause serious damage to some democracies if the transatlantic community fails to take action. The threat is complex, requiring integrated, multi-stakeholder solutions, including a new digital media policy roadmap.
Karen Kornbluh and Spencer Boyer, two leading experts analyzing different aspects of the issue, joined us May 20, 2020 to explain the nature of the infodemic, key actors and possible solutions.
TDWG Executive Director of Secretariat and GMF Senior Fellow Susan Corke and ICWA Executive Director Gregory Feifer moderated.
Spencer P. Boyer is the Director of the Washington Office of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law; Adjunct Professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow with the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy & Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania. Spencer served in senior roles in both terms of the Obama administration. From 2014 to 2017, he was the National Intelligence Officer for Europe in the National Intelligence Council–the center for long-range strategic thinking within the US Intelligence Community. During the administration’s first term, he served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
Karen Kornbluh is Senior Fellow and founding Director of the German Marshall Fund’s Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative (#GMFDigital). She served as US Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and policy director for former-Senator Barack Obama. She was Deputy Chief of Staff at the Treasury Department and Director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Federal Communications Commission. Ambassador Kornbluh serves currently as a member of the board of both the US Agency for International Media and the Open Technology Fund. As Executive Vice President at the research company Nielsen, she created the company’s privacy program and foundation. She has published broadly on technology and social policy.
Top Photo: (Frederick Burr Opper, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_fin_de_si%C3%A8cle_newspaper_proprietor_(cropped).jpg)
