From Russia with Likes (Part 1) — with Renée DiResta

Today’s online propaganda has evolved in unforeseeable and
seemingly absurd ways; by laughing at or spreading a Kermit the
Frog meme, you may be unwittingly advancing the Russian agenda.
These campaigns affect our elections integrity, public health,
and relationships. In this episode, the first of two parts,
disinformation expert Renee DiResta talks with Tristan and Aza
about how these tactics work, how social media platforms’
algorithms and business models allow foreign agents to game the
system, and what these messages reveal to us about ourselves.
Renee gained unique insight into this issue when in 2017 Congress
asked her to lead a team of investigators analyzing a data set of
texts, images and videos from Facebook, Twitter and Google
thought to have been created by Russia’s Internet Research
Agency. She shares what she learned, and in part two of their
conversation, Renee, Tristan and Aza will discuss what steps can
be taken to prevent this kind of manipulation in the
future.