"Mercenaries of Deceit: Understanding Propaganda and Digital Dark Arts "
Mercenaries of Deceit: Understanding Propaganda and Digital Dark Arts
Dr. Emma L. Briant
University of Cambridge Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022)
Dr. Emma L Briant is a scholar who researches contemporary propaganda and information warfare, its governance in an age of mass-surveillance and its implications for democracy, security, inequality and human rights.
Date: Thursday, September 22nd | Time: 3:00 - 4:50pm | Location: LNCO 2120
Dr. Briant will explain through examples how dominant approaches to tackling online falsehood, in ignoring the intent and differential responsibility of actors behind misleading narratives, are producing industry-backed solutions in the US and UK that shift responses away from those seeking to deceive, onto restricting misleading content on platforms, using methods that undermine citizens' speech and threaten democracy. In an age of profitable deception with concealed weapons of influence all around us, Dr. Briant argues we must force the public debate and policy focus back onto powerful industry, taking on underground influence and the Mercenaries of Deceit.