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When we speak and associate with others in real life, the First Amendment governs interactions, granting broad rights of individual speech and association. Yet when we interact online, we submit to terms of service from private companies. The consequence is that private platforms have become the new governors of speech and association. As if that weren’t bad enough, the pl...

Readers, viewers, and subscribers want and need accurate news and information, but as we attempt to navigate among publishers and platforms and networks, who is ultimately responsible for telling us the truth? Who should be held accountable for information that is inaccurate, intentionally misleading, or straight-up fake? And what can media and information organizations do...

The 2016 presidential campaign broke down previously established rules and distinctions between insiders and outsiders and various types of media — all accelerated by the Internet. The velocity of information and viral communication can create dysfunction in campaigns and within democracy. And for a relatively small investment in resources, a country's media can be infiltr...

The Founders created a representative republic rather than a direct democracy, designed to slow down deliberation so that majorities could rule based on reason rather than passion. But in the age of Facebook and Twitter, new social media technologies have unleashed populist passions and accelerated public discourse to warp speed, creating the very mobs, demagogues, echo ch...

This session considers the importance of trust, and a healthy distrust, in the well-being of a democracy and the role of the press in this equation drawing on the report of the Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy released Feb. 5, 2019 titled, “Crisis in Democracy: Renewing Trust in America.” What measures should local journalism, social media, and the public ta...

In a well-functioning democracy, people do not live in echo chambers or filter bubbles; rather, citizens are exposed to myriad ideas and perspectives even if not their own. Constitutional scholar Cass Sunstein suggests that our current obsession with social media and our online friend groups narrow the scope of the kinds of daily and serendipitous interactions that might o...

Technology has revolutionized the way we see and share beauty. From street style rocking luxury fashion houses to the changes in how and what we purchase, social media is disrupting the world of fashion. How does having the world at our fingertips make fashion more accessible and democratic? And in the process – how are we changing the ways in which we express ourselves cr...

Platforms like Twitter and Facebook set the stage for a promising digital revolution, providing tools that helped foster global friendships, let new voices be heard, and served as the ultimate democratizing force for information. But critics argue that rather than uniting and informing, social media deepens social and political divisions and erodes trust in the democratic...

Marty Baron has a larger-than-life reputation among journalists, who revere him one of the best editors in a generation. Multiple Pulitzer Prizes — and Oscar-winning narratives — only punctuate his passion for excellence in reporting. Since joining The Washington Post as executive editor in 2013, Baron has pursued the kind of investigative journalism for which the paper is...

Robert Mueller made clear the bottom line of his investigation: Russia attacked our democracy — and, as he said, every American should focus on that. Instead, recent news reports reveal that the Department of Homeland Security wasn't even allowed to bring up the threat of election attacks with President Trump. As candidates hit the 2020 campaign trail, what should the Unit...

If the First Amendment’s protections against government intrusion are a core tenet of American democracy, what happens when the chief regulators of speech are private technology companies? What is protected, who gets to decide, and what are the implications for our democracy?

In their new book, co-authors and Stanford professors Rob Reich and Mehran Sahami argue that big tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values. In this conversation, they outline steps we should take to change course and renew democracy.

Featured Ideas Festival Scholar includes Liz Plank. A robust fourth estate is central to the education of an engaged citizenry and healthy democracy. It informs us, shapes our thinking, and holds our leaders and institutions accountable. But if Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump agree on one thing this election season, it’s that political media is malfunctioning. On televisio...

What’s the future of streaming, disinformation, and building greater trust among audiences? A conversation with César Conde, the leader of NBCU News Group, the largest news organization in the United States, reaching more than eight in ten Americans each month.

How will government survive without the skill of tech superstars among its ranks? Jen Pahlka’s Code for America was launched with the mission to use the principles and practices of the digital age to rebuild the institutions we rely on for our democracy. Kathleen Janus, whose recent book took her around the country meeting top social entrepreneurs, guides this conversation...

In America today, your understanding of the truth rests upon who you are, where you live, and who gets your vote. It’s no surprise then that trust in the media, once a given, is equally fractured — presenting a danger not only to democracy but to the fabric of society itself. Through a perilous maze of political identities, how can the news deliver the facts and reunite us...

Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other hatreds are thriving today, and nowhere are they more rampant, vitriolic, and dangerously unchecked than in cyberspace. Learn how an innovative, high-tech initiative of the Anti-Defamation League and Omidyar Networks will take the fight against hate to the online arenas where it’s thriving, combining state-of-the-art technolog...

George Soros said social media platforms are the largest threat to democracy. Marc Benioff said we should regulate them like tobacco. Why? Every day, platforms like Facebook and YouTube point their supercomputers at two billion people’s minds to capture their attention, and in the process create social harms that include digital addiction, amplifying genocide, political po...

We are increasingly living in different realities of news, politics, and information — a trend that’s undermining the shared foundation of “truth” necessary for proper functioning of society. At risk are public health, elections, and democracy itself. But America’s “fake news” problem actually runs much deeper. What are the roots of our broken information ecosystems, who i...

What can you learn about yourself by understanding the animal mind? A lot, it turns out. In this deep dive, three professors explain how your personality, logic, and ability to love might be informed by our animalistic natures. Friendliness in canines and primates is a major advantage in their evolution, just as it is for humans acting as tolerant citizens in a democracy....