Platforms, Power, and Democracy

Join and renowned international experts , , and for a conversation focused on better understanding the power and influence that platforms have on society and what can be done to better govern the role they play in shaping our democracy.

Meta’s recent blocking of news, disinformation surrounding the killing of a Canadian by a foreign government, the specter of foreign interference in our politics, and the extensively documented harms to youth online all underscore the urgency for much better visibility into how social media is shaping our attitudes, behaviours, and Canadian politics. At the same time, Twitter/X and Reddit have shut-off reasonable data access for researchers, and Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat continue to severely limit researcher access.

All this means that more than ever before, governments are being asked to manage a set of disruptive, powerful, society-shaping technologies without a proper line of sight into how they work and what impacts they are having.

This fireside chat features three experts who are uniquely positioned to speak to the ways social media platforms exert their considerable influence to shape research and the policymaking process in this space. The conversation will move beyond just identifying the impacts this behaviour has on our democracies, with the goal of generating ideas about how to move forward for those researching and governing these society-shaping technologies.

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Space is limited and prior registration is required. Walk-ins will not be admitted.

This in-person event will take place at the Sofitel Montreal at 1155 Rue Sherbrooke O, Montréal, QC H3A 2N3, Canada on November 29 at 6pm. Doors open at 5:30 pm for a brief reception prior to the event.

The (MEO) is delighted to host this conversation as part of the larger Canadian Digital Media Research Network's (CDMRN) conference, Attention: Understanding and Shaping the Digital Media Ecosystem.

Speakers:

is an assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University. Dr. Donovan is one of the foremost experts focused on media manipulation, effects of disinformation campaigns, and adversarial media movements, with a particular focus on how social movements, political parties, governments, corporations, and other networked groups engage in active efforts to shape media narratives and disrupt social institutions. She was previously a researcher and lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School, an affiliate at Data and Society, and was research director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

is a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research, teaching, and service are animated by the question, “how well does democracy work?” He directs the Physiology and Communication Effects (PACE) Lab, is a Senior Fellow with the Mass Communication Research Center, a faculty affiliate at the Center for Communication and Democracy, and a faculty affiliate at the Elections Research Center at UW-Madison. He served as an independent rapporteur for a data sharing collaboration between dozens of scholars and Meta as part of a study into the 2020 US presidential election. Interest in social media's role in elections came after evidence that the 2016 US election was rife with suspicious and divisive groups targeting swing-state residents on Facebook.

is the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies. Renee investigates the spread of narratives across social and media networks, with an interest in understanding how platform algorithms and affordances intersect with user behavior and factional crowd dynamics. She studies how actors leverage the information ecosystem to exert influence, from domestic activists promoting health misinformation and conspiracy theories, to the full-spectrum information operations executed by state actors. Renee regularly writes and speaks about technology policy, and influence operations in leading media outlets ranging from the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, amongst others while also notably authoring The Hardware Startup: Building your Product, Business, and Brand.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Sofitel Montreal Golden Mile, 1155 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal, Canada