How to Stay Human on the Internet with Renée DiResta

In this episode, I’m joined by Renée DiResta, Associate Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, who studies social media, online manipulation, AI, misinformation, and how messages move across the internet.This conversation started with a simple question: how do we stay safe online? But it quickly became about something much bigger. How do we protect our attention? How do we know what is real? How do we keep our values intact in online spaces that are often designed to make us reactive, anxious, outraged, or hooked?Renée explains how social media platforms are not neutral. They are built around growth, engagement, data, advertising, and keeping us there. Every scroll, pause, like, and click teaches the system more about us, which means the content we see is not random. It is selected, tested, and pushed towards us because the platform thinks it might hold our attention.We talk about AI slop, scams, fake images, old videos being recirculated as new, online manipulation, audience capture, online conflict, and why it is becoming harder to tell the difference between what is real, what is fake, and what is technically real but being used in a misleading way.One of the biggest ideas from this conversation is that discernment is now a practice. It is not just about fact-checking something after the fact. It is about noticing when something is trying to bypass your judgement in the first place.Renée also shares how she talks to her own children about technology, online safety, chat platforms, privacy, and the importance of keeping communication open when something goes wrong.This is a conversation about the internet, but really it is about agency. About slowing down, paying attention, and remembering that a bountiful life is one where your time, your attention, and your choices still belong to you.Episode HighlightsHow Renée came to study social media, misinformation and online manipulationWhat platforms and algorithms are designed to do with our attentionWhy AI is making scams, fake content and deception harder to spotHow to tell the difference between what is real, true and misleadingWhy discernment is now an essential life skillHow the internet can make us more reactive, performative and disconnected from our valuesWhat audience capture means for creators and online behaviourHow to talk to children about privacy, trust and online safetyWhy a healthier relationship with technology begins with awareness, not fearTimestamps00:00 Why the internet makes everything feel urgent01:35 Renée’s path into studying social media and misinformation09:18 What platforms and algorithms are really designed to do18:10 Online communities, loneliness and rabbit holes19:45 AI scams, fake content and online deception26:51 Discernment, truth and learning to pause before reacting31:08 Online manipulation and how new technology gets exploited40:12 Audience capture and staying authentic online47:53 Online behaviour, values and taking back your attention55:33 Kids, online safety and open conversations about technology01:00:18 AI chatbots, companionship and emotional risk01:04:23 What it means to Renée to live a bountiful lifeGuest BioRenée DiResta is an Associate Research Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Her work focuses on adversarial abuse online, including social media manipulation, misinformation, scams, AI-generated content, influence operations and child safety. Before joining Georgetown, she was the research director at the Stanford Internet Observatory, where she studied the abuse of online platforms and how digital systems shape public conversation.Bountifull Podcast Bountifull is a podcast exploring joy, wellbeing, creativity, connection and what it means to live a more meaningful life.