How democracies can win the war on reality
from Democracy Works Hosted by Chris Beem, Peter Pomerantsev, Michael Berkman, Jenna Spinelle
Misinformation, disinformation, propaganda — the terms are thrown around a lot but often used to describe the same general trend toward conspiratorial thinking that spread from the post-Soviet world to the West over the past two decades. Peter Pomerantsev had a front seat to this shift and is one of the people trying to figure out how to make the Internet more democratic and combat disinformation from both the supply side and the demand side. These issues came to a head in the United States last week as Liz Cheney was removed from her leadership position in Congress for not pledging her support to the lies surrounding a rigged 2020 election. Michael and Chris begin with a discussion of this dynamic before the interview. Pomerantsev is a senior fellow at the London School of Economics and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality and Nothing is True and Everything Is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia. He has a forthcoming project with Anne Applebaum that will examine why people believe in conspiracies and how to create content that fosters collaboration, rather than sows division. Additional Information This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality How to Put Out Democracy's Dumpster Fire - article with Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic Peter Pomerantsev on Twitter Related Episodes A path forward for social media and democracy Can pranksters save democracy? How conspiracies are damaging democracy
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What this episode covers
The battle between facts and lies, truth and untruth, is one of the most pressing issues democracies face. Peter Pomerantsev joins us this week to discuss both the scope of the problem and what we can do about it.
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