Podcast: Don't Hype Disinfo, Say Disinfo Experts

Audio of this conversation is available via your favorite podcast service.

One topic we come back to again and again on this podcast is disinformation. In many episodes, we’ve discussed various phenomena related to this ambiguous term, and we’ve tried to use science to guide the way.

But the guests in this episode suggest that in the broader political discourse, the term is more than over used. Often, lawmakers and other elites that employ it are crossing the line into hyping the effects of disinformation, which the guests say only helps propagandists and diminishes trust in society. To learn more, Justin Hendrix spoke with:

• Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow in the Technology and International Affairs program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an adjunct lecturer at the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
• Thomas Rid, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, founding director of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and the author of Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare.
• Olga Belogolova, the director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at Johns Hopkins SAIS and a lecturer at the Alperovitch Institute of Cybersecurity Studies. Belogolova previously led policy work on countering influence operations at Meta.

With Lee Foster, they are the authors of a new essay in the publication Foreign Affairs titled "Don’t Hype the Disinformation: Downplaying the Risk Helps Foreign Propagandists, But So Does Exaggerating It."

A transcript of the discussion is forthcoming.