-
No matter who you are or where you live,
-
I'm guessing that you have
at least one relative
-
that likes to forward those emails.
-
You know the ones I'm talking about --
-
the ones with dubious claims
or conspiracy videos.
-
And you've probably
already muted them on Facebook
-
for sharing social posts like this one.
-
It's an image of a banana
-
with a strange red cross
running through the center.
-
And the text around it is warning people
-
not to eat fruits that look like this,
-
suggesting they've been
injected with blood
-
contaminated with the HIV virus.
-
And the social share message
above it simply says,
-
"Please forward to save lives."
-
Now, fact-checkers have been debunking
this one for years,
-
but it's one of those rumors
that just won't die.
-
A zombie rumor.
-
And, of course, it's entirely false.
-
It might be tempting to laugh
at an example like this, to say,
-
"Well, who would believe this, anyway?"
-
But the reason it's a zombie rumor
-
is because it taps into people's
deepest fears about their own safety
-
and that of the people they love.
-
And if you spend as enough time
as I have looking at misinformation,
-
you know that this is just
one example of many
-
that taps into people's deepest
fears and vulnerabilities.
-
Every day, across the world,
we see scores of new memes on Instagram
-
encouraging parents
not to vaccinate their children.
-
We see new videos on YouTube
explaining that climate change is a hoax.
-
And across all platforms, we see
endless posts designed to demonize others
-
on the basis of their race,
religion or sexuality.
-
Welcome to one of the central
challenges of our time.
-
How can we maintain an internet
with freedom of expression at the core,
-
while also ensuring that the content
that's being disseminated
-
doesn't cause irreparable harms
to our democracies, our communities
-
and to our physical and mental well-being?
-
Because we live in the information age,
-
yet the central currency
upon which we all depend -- information --
-
is no longer deemed entirely trustworthy
-
and, at times, can appear
downright dangerous.
-
This is thanks in part to the runaway
growth of social sharing platforms
-
that allow us to scroll through,
-
where lies and facts sit side by side,
-
but with none of the traditional
signals of trustworthiness.
-
And goodness -- our language around this
is horribly muddled.
-
People are still obsessed
with the phrase "fake news,"
-
despite the fact that
it's extraordinarily unhelpful
-
and used to describe a number of things
that are actually very different:
-
lies, rumors, hoaxes,
conspiracies, propaganda.
-
And I really wish
we could stop using a phrase
-
that's been co-opted by politicians
right around the world,
-
from the left and the right,
-
used as a weapon to attack
a free and independent press.
-
(Applause)
-
Because we need our professional
news media now more than ever.
-
And besides, most of this content
doesn't even masquerade as news.
-
It's memes, videos, social posts.
-
And most of it is not fake;
it's misleading.
-
We tend to fixate on what's true or false.
-
But the biggest concern is actually
the weaponization of context.
-
Because the most effective disinformation
-
has always been that
which has a kernel of truth to it.
-
Let's take this example
from London, from March 2017,
-
a tweet that circulated widely
-
in the aftermath of a terrorist incident
on Westminster Bridge.
-
This is a genuine image, not fake.
-
The woman who appears in the photograph
was interviewed afterwards,
-
and she explained that
she was utterly traumatized.
-
She was on the phone to a loved one,
-
and she wasn't looking
at the victim out of respect.
-
But it still was circulated widely
with this Islamophobic framing,
-
with multiple hashtags,
including: #BanIslam.
-
Now, if you worked at Twitter,
what would you do?
-
Would you take that down,
or would you leave it up?
-
My gut reaction, my emotional reaction,
is to take this down.
-
I hate the framing of this image.
-
But freedom of expression
is a human right,
-
and if we start taking down speech
that makes us feel uncomfortable,
-
we're in trouble.
-
And this might look like a clear-cut case,
-
but, actually, most speech isn't.
-
These lines are incredibly
difficult to draw.
-
What's a well-meaning
decision by one person
-
is outright censorship to the next.
-
What we now know is that
this account, Texas Lone Star,
-
was part of a wider Russian
disinformation campaign,
-
one that has since been taken down.
-
Would that change your view?
-
It would mine,
-
because now it's a case
of a coordinated campaign
-
to sow discord.
-
And for those of you who'd like to think
-
that artificial intelligence
will solve all of our problems,
-
I think we can agree
that we're a long way away
-
from AI that's able to make sense
of posts like this.
-
So I'd like to explain
three interlocking issues
-
that make this so complex
-
and then think about some ways
we can consider these challenges.
-
First, we just don't have
a rational relationship to information,
-
we have an emotional one.
-
It's just not true that more facts
will make everything OK,
-
because the algorithms that determine
what content we see,
-
well, they're designed to reward
our emotional responses.
-
And when we're fearful,
-
oversimplified narratives,
conspiratorial explanations
-
and language that demonizes others
is far more effective.
-
And besides, many of these companies,
-
their business model
is attached to attention,
-
which means these algorithms
will always be skewed towards emotion.
-
Second, most of the speech
I'm talking about here is legal.
-
It would be a different matter
-
if I was talking about
child sexual abuse imagery
-
or content that incites violence.
-
It can be perfectly legal
to post an outright lie.
-
But people keep talking about taking down
"problematic" or "harmful" content,
-
but with no clear definition
of what they mean by that,
-
including Mark Zuckerberg,
-
who recently called for global
regulation to moderate speech.
-
And my concern is that
we're seeing governments
-
right around the world
-
rolling out hasty policy decisions
-
that might actually trigger
much more serious consequences
-
when it comes to our speech.
-
And even if we could decide
which speech to take up or take down,
-
we've never had so much speech.
-
Every second, millions
of pieces of content
-
are uploaded by people
right around the world
-
in different languages,
-
drawing on thousands
of different cultural contexts.
-
We've simply never had
effective mechanisms
-
to moderate speech at this scale,
-
whether powered by humans
or by technology.
-
And third, these companies --
Google, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp --
-
they're part of a wider
information ecosystem.
-
We like to lay all the blame
at their feet, but the truth is,
-
the mass media and elected officials
can also play an equal role
-
in amplifying rumors and conspiracies
when they want to.
-
As can we, when we mindlessly forward
divisive or misleading content
-
without trying.
-
We're adding to the pollution.
-
I know we're all looking for an easy fix.
-
But there just isn't one.
-
Any solution will have to be rolled out
at a massive scale, internet scale,
-
and yes, the platforms,
they're used to operating at that level.
-
But can and should we allow them
to fix these problems?
-
They're certainly trying.
-
But most of us would agree that, actually,
we don't want global corporations
-
to be the guardians of truth
and fairness online.
-
And I also think the platforms
would agree with that.
-
And at the moment,
they're marking their own homework.
-
They like to tell us
-
that the interventions
they're rolling out are working,
-
but because they write
their own transparency reports,
-
there's no way for us to independently
verify what's actually happening.
-
(Applause)
-
And let's also be clear
that most of the changes we see
-
only happen after journalists
undertake an investigation
-
and find evidence of bias
-
or content that breaks
their community guidelines.
-
So yes, these companies have to play
a really important role in this process,
-
but they can't control it.
-
So what about governments?
-
Many people believe
that global regulation is our last hope
-
in terms of cleaning up
our information ecosystem.
-
But what I see are lawmakers
who are struggling to keep up to date
-
with the rapid changes in technology.
-
And worse, they're working in the dark,
-
because they don't have access to data
-
to understand what's happening
on these platforms.
-
And anyway, which governments
would we trust to do this?
-
We need a global response,
not a national one.
-
So the missing link is us.
-
It's those people who use
these technologies every day.
-
Can we design a new infrastructure
to support quality information?
-
Well, I believe we can,
-
and I've got a few ideas about
what we might be able to actually do.
-
So firstly, if we're serious
about bringing the public into this,
-
can we take some inspiration
from Wikipedia?
-
They've shown us what's possible.
-
Yes, it's not perfect,
-
but they've demonstrated
that with the right structures,
-
with a global outlook
and lots and lots of transparency,
-
you can build something
that will earn the trust of most people.
-
Because we have to find a way
to tap into the collective wisdom
-
and experience of all users.
-
This is particularly the case
for women, people of color
-
and underrepresented groups.
-
Because guess what?
-
They are experts when it comes
to hate and disinformation,
-
because they have been the targets
of these campaigns for so long.
-
And over the years,
they've been raising flags,
-
and they haven't been listened to.
-
This has got to change.
-
So could we build a Wikipedia for trust?
-
Could we find a way that users
can actually provide insights?
-
They could offer insights around
difficult content-moderation decisions.
-
They could provide feedback
-
when platforms decide
they want to roll out new changes.
-
Second, people's experiences
with the information is personalized.
-
My Facebook news feed
is very different to yours.
-
Your YouTube recommendations
are very different to mine.
-
That makes it impossible for us
to actually examine
-
what information people are seeing.
-
So could we imagine
-
developing some kind of centralized
open repository for anonymized data,
-
with privacy and ethical
concerns built in?
-
Because imagine what we would learn
-
if we built out a global network
of concerned citizens
-
who wanted to donate
their social data to science.
-
Because we actually know very little
-
about the long-term consequences
of hate and disinformation
-
on people's attitudes and behaviors.
-
And what we do know,
-
most of that has been
carried out in the US,
-
despite the fact that
this is a global problem.
-
We need to work on that, too.
-
And third,
-
can we find a way to connect the dots?
-
No one sector, let alone nonprofit,
start-up or government,
-
is going to solve this.
-
But there are very smart people
right around the world
-
working on these challenges,
-
from newsrooms, civil society,
academia, activist groups.
-
And you can see some of them here.
-
Some are building out indicators
of content credibility.
-
Others are fact-checking,
-
so that false claims, videos and images
can be down-ranked by the platforms.
-
A nonprofit I helped
to found, First Draft,
-
is working with normally competitive
newsrooms around the world
-
to help them build out investigative,
collaborative programs.
-
And Danny Hillis, a software architect,
-
is designing a new system
called The Underlay,
-
which will be a record
of all public statements of fact
-
connected to their sources,
-
so that people and algorithms
can better judge what is credible.
-
And educators around the world
are testing different techniques
-
for finding ways to make people
critical of the content they consume.
-
All of these efforts are wonderful,
but they're working in silos,
-
and many of them are woefully underfunded.
-
There are also hundreds
of very smart people
-
working inside these companies,
-
but again, these efforts
can feel disjointed,
-
because they're actually developing
different solutions to the same problems.
-
How can we find a way
to bring people together
-
in one physical location
for days or weeks at a time,
-
so they can actually tackle
these problems together
-
but from their different perspectives?
-
So can we do this?
-
Can we build out a coordinated,
ambitious response,
-
one that matches the scale
and the complexity of the problem?
-
I really think we can.
-
Together, let's rebuild
our information commons.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)