Around the world, automated bot accounts have enabled some government agencies and political parties to exploit online platforms in dispersing messages, using keywords to game algorithms, and discrediting legitimate information on a mass scale. Through this they can spread junk news and disinformation; exercise censorship and control; and undermine trust in the media, public institutions and science. But is this form of propaganda really new? If so, what effect is it having on society? And is the worst yet to come as AI develops?
Join our host, philosopher Peter Millican, as he explores this topic with Rasmus Nielsen, Director of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; Vidya Narayanan, post-doctoral researcher in Oxford’s Computational Propaganda Project; and Mimie Liotsiou, also a post-doctoral researcher on the Computational Propaganda project who works on online social influence.