Rebrand This, Mr. Z: How Social Media Has Weaponized Disinformation Against Democracies.

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Governments can be slow to help those in need, yet they often act fast against real threats. Social media platforms, like Facebook (Meta) have been long critiqued for being bigger than governments, both in terms of subscribers and revenue. But is Facebook a threat to governments, democracies and to populations themselves? Despite the birthday reminders, cute cat photos, and ability to sell goods locally, Facebook has enabled the spread of disinformation, intimidation, hatred and fear to the point where lives have been threatened. In particular the patterns of disinformation show that women in politics are particularly targeted, and strategically so. If social media is a potential threat to democracies, what can be done? Kristina Wilfore spells it all out in this 30 minute podcast.

Kristina Wilfore is a seasoned international development professional having worked against authoritarian regimes around the world for the National Democratic Institute, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and USAID-funded grantees - designing and implementing large-scale election integrity, political party, civil society and disinformation defense programs in post conflict and pre-revolutionary environments.

Through the 2020 general election in the US, Kristina managed the largest effort in US history to help civil society organizations and election stakeholders detect, respond to, and preempt orchestrated disinformation campaigns.

She has helped campaign professionals in Western Europe throughout Sweden, Spain, Finland and the Netherlands work against growing far-right populist movements, by improving message strategies and grassroots engagement with voters. In the 2019 EU election, she worked to expose online influence operations and pushback on disinformation, organizing digital forensic evidence for regulators on activities of malign actors. She has piloted public engagement campaigns to tackle disinformation head on in Kosovo, Serbia and Ukraine.

Kristina is originally from Montana where she began her journey in changemaking when at the age of 14 she organized a letter to the editor campaign to support Planned Parenthood after an abortion clinic in the state was bombed by anti-choice extremists.

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