Sam Woolley on The Reality Game

Sam Woolley discusses his new book, The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth . On this episode of Technology & Prose, Sam Woolley, Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism at UT Austin, joins host Nikita Aggarwal to talk about computational propaganda (comprop), mis- and disinformation (1:43) how the term ‘fake news’ has been weaponised by despots (4:46) the ‘Reality Game’ and how comprop has distorted the truth, increased polarisation and decreased trust in institutions (6:30) the key perpetrators of comprop (9:05) grassroots v astroturfing and the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate manipulation (10:20) the history of comprop from Ukraine and the Arab Spring to Trump, Brexit, and Cambridge Analytica (12:16) the role of social media platforms in spreading comprop (15:05) why platforms haven’t taken enough action to tackle comprop (18:10) free speech, section 230 CDA and why governments need to do more to regulate comprop (24:30) recent action by Twitter and Facebook to de-platform Trump and tackle health disinformation (30:13) addressing the demand-side of comprop, why conspiracy theories travel faster than truth, designing technology with human rights in mind (31:58) Deepfake, VR/AR, audio, haptics, and the future of comprop (36:19) the need for more solutions-oriented work on comprop (40:04). Recorded on 11th Feb 2021.

You can listen to Sam Woolley on The Reality Game online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Sam Woolley on The Reality Game is an episode from Technology & Prose by Nikita Aggarwal.

This episode is 43:12 long.

This episode was published on Mar 4, 2021.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Technology & Prose when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.