January 21, 2026 — Interview with Skylar Hughes

Reading about Skylar Hughes is like reading about the early days of a superstar. A ballerina, a young academic powerhouse, and a community and psychological researcher for years already, Skylar went from high school in Georgia to attending Duke University, her dream at the time.  She worked as a fact-checker at CNN, and caught our eye with her TEDxDuke talk about social norms around truth. Since then, she has graduated from Duke and is now pursuing a Master’s in the Social Science of the Internet at the Oxford Internet Institute.  In this interview, we discuss distinctions between norms, normal, and normalized, dis- and misinformation, believing lies vs. condoning lies, “weird checking,” the Fairness Doctrine, and much more. We also have our “Discoveries of the Week.” The paper Skylar mentions Subscribe to our podcast Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Amazon Music/Audible Subscribe on YouTube Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/