Turnout

‘A guerrilla act of subversion’

Katie Couric explores how disinformation is used to suppress the vote and how it’s being tackled by activists and citizens alike

This week on Turnout, Katie Couric explores how disinformation is used to suppress the vote and how it’s being tackled by activists and citizens alike. While disinformation has been used to subvert the voting process for decades, long before the internet, it is now thriving online like never before. “Bad actors” are lurking behind your screen and on your social media platforms, eager to sew chaos and distrust in the election system. But, fear not! There’s hope and also something YOU can do. Jesse Littlewood from Common Cause shares tips for how to spot disinformation on the internet and what to do about it (hint: don’t engage!). And, in an effort to provide some sort of check to Facebook’s unbalanced power, British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr tells us how her group, the “Real Facebook Oversight Board,” plans to hold Mark Zuckerberg’s feet to the fire. 

More about the guests and organizations featured in this episode: Jesse Littlewood is the vice president for campaigns at Common Cause. As part of its election protection work, Common Cause has launched a Stop Cyber Suppression program, where you can report disinformation or join the Common Cause Action Team’s Social Media Monitoring program. Carole Cadwalladr is a British Pulitzer-nominated investigative journalist who broke the Cambridge Analytica story after working with whistleblower Christopher Wylie for a year. The Real Facebook Oversight Board