While Obama’s speech very much focused on the role of social media, he briefly mentioned the role traditional media can play in amplifying division or misinformation. In his memoir, he was cr…
By Donie O’Sullivan| CNN Former President Barack Obama on Thursday called on tech companies to provide greater transparency about the way they promote content and for stricter regulation of the industry to combat what he called the “disinformation problem.” Obama, speaking in the heart of Silicon Valley in Stanford, California, has been making the fight against disinformation a key pillar of his post-presidency. The debate over the spread of misleading information online has picked up significant urgency in the wake of falsehoods about Covid-19 and the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. “Social media did not create racism or White supremacist groups. It didn’t create the kind of ethnonationalism that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is enraptured with,” Obama said. “All these things existed long before the first tweet or Facebook Poke. Solving the disinformation problem won’t cure all that ails our democracies or tears at the fabric of our world. But it can help tamp down divisions and let us rebuild the trust and solidarity needed.
