June 4, 2024
While disinformation has always been involved in politics and business, what flows across our screens today is unparalleled. Disinformation comes from many sources, from articles and media coverage to gossip, but social media is amplifying misleading content and manipulating public narratives in ways that escape the digital commons and echo even across the traditional media sphere. You don’t even need to lie to destructively shape the information environment – divisive true facts and ambiguity can be equally effective for seeding turmoil.
Organized influence operations, both domestic and foreign, scaled up by generative AI powered by applications like ChatGPT, pose a strategic risk to enterprises and societies around the world. AI has given tools to anyone who wants to create convincing false information or even deep fakes of people. The consequences of this newly subverted public square pose novel challenges for boards to account for as organizations’ reputations can be trivially slandered or even the countries they operate in destabilized overnight. How does a board account for and deal with these risks?
You are in for an engaging and productive discussion on these issues, and what boards can do, with veteran social media data scientist and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who is responsible for the historic disclosures that drove the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series and triggered passage of the Digital Services Act, and 44-state consumer protection lawsuit against Meta for lying about the impact of its products on children. Today she is a widely sought speaker, an author of The Power of One: How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook, and a Founder of the nonprofit Beyond the Screen. (I added my bio below, include any details you want). Susan Keating, CEO of the BRC, will moderate the hour session on Tuesday, June 4th from 11-12 pm ET.
You will walk away with a better understanding of the challenges we all face with disinformation and some best practices for boards to be ready when your reputation is at risk.
SPEAKER: Frances Haugen
MODERATOR: Susan C. Keating, CEO Board Risk Committee