Renee DiResta is a Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust as well as Technical Research Manager at Stanford’s Internet Observatory. She spends her time at Stanford working on forensic analysis of misinformation campaigns, proactive detection, and policy analysis. Mozilla’s Fellowship program explores “internet health — from harassment to accessibility to privacy and security.” In her day-to-day, Renee analyzes design choices and platforms decisions to understand how they affect information integrity.
Prior to her interest in misinformation campaigns, Renee received degrees in computer science and political science from Stony Brook University. Her first job outside of school was writing code for a financial trading company. However, she quickly realized she wanted to become a financial trader herself and went on to become an arbitrage trader for seven years before moving to Silicon Valley to work in venture capital at O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. After a few years in Silicon Valley, Renee was bit by the entrepreneurial bug and started her first company, Haven, which uses technology to streamline end-to-end shipment management for global companies. During this time, Renee had her first child and became interested in the anti-vaccination movement, causing her to get involved in advocacy online and begin researching misinformation campaigns.
On this episode, Stephanie and Renee dive deep into the red flags or anomalous activity Renee identifies online to point to misinformation campaigns, the responsibility of tech companies to protect users, and so much more!
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