Demystifying the Disinformation Marketplace

01/28/25 • 46 min

There never will be enough independent fact checking of online political advertising and their ecosystems. Can we develop methods and tools to demonetize or at least disincentivize the behaviors of disinformation producers as well as the ad firms and content providers in business with them? 2023-24 CASBS fellow Ceren Budak navigates the disinformation marketplace and illuminates pathways for better design of online communities and platforms in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist and former CASBS fellow John Markoff.

CEREN BUDAK: Faculty webpage | Personal website |

Referenced in this episode:

"Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation." Nature 630, 45–53 (2024)

The Prosocial Ranking Challenge (Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence)

"Intermedia agenda setting during the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections." Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 18(1), 254-275.

Lawrence Lessig's Pathetic Dot Theory (Wikipedia)
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Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand (Penguin Random House, 2022)

CEREN BUDAK: Faculty webpage | Personal website |

Referenced in this episode:

"Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation." Nature 630, 45–53 (2024)

The Prosocial Ranking Challenge (Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence)

"Intermedia agenda setting during the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections." Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 18(1), 254-275.

Lawrence Lessig's Pathetic Dot Theory (Wikipedia)
----
Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand (Penguin Random House, 2022)

Previous Episode

The Humanity of Connective Labor

Are jobs requiring high levels of human interaction worth preserving in the age of automation? Can we design machines to achieve something profound – the mutual recognition that occurs when human beings truly "see" each other? CASBS faculty fellow Mitchell Stevens explores these questions with Allison Pugh, author of the 2024 book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. Pugh launched work on the book as a 2016-17 CASBS fellow.
ALLISON PUGH
website | Google Scholar page | Interview with Allison Pugh on building a society of connection (CASBS in partnership with Public Books) |
Princeton University Press page for The Last Human Job

MITCHELL STEVENS
Stanford GSE faculty page | Stanford profile | CASBS page | Google Scholar page |

Next Episode

Anthropology at the Borderlands of Experience

Two-time CASBS fellow and renowned anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann discusses her past and current work as an anthropologist of the mind, both in religious and psychological contexts, in conversation with 2023-24 CASBS fellow Erica Robles-Anderson. Luhrmann's award-winning work investigates visions, voices, psychosis, the supernatural, and other unusual sensory experiences and phenomena, found often at the borderlands of spirit, culture, and the mind.
TANYA LUHRMANN: Stanford faculty page | Stanford profile page | Personal website | Wikipedia page | on Google Scholar | CV |
Luhrmann, Of Two Minds. Winner of: the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, the Bryce Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology, the Gradiva Award from the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis

Luhrmann, When God Talks Back. Winner of the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion and the Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year.

Luhrmann, "A life in books," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2020)
Luhrmann, et al. "Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021)

ERICA ROBLES-ANDERSON: NYU faculty page | CASBS page | on Google Scholar |