Fixing the Information Crisis Before It's Too Late (for Democracy)

Fixing the Information Crisis Before It's Too Late (for Democracy)

Big Tech’s business model incentivizes disinformation – in some cases, it even boosts calls for violence. Meanwhile, China and other foreign states are targeting this year’s U.S. presidential elections. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently summed up the crisis. “Our competitors and adversaries are using disinformation to exploit fissures within our democracies.”
Dominant online platforms pose many additional dangers to journalism, free speech, and democracy. This includes blocking U.S. citizens from sharing news with one another, starving publishers of advertising and readers, and simply appropriating news for their own purposes without compensation. And now AI can be deployed to amplify every one of these threats.
The timing could not be more critical, with vitally important elections this year in the U.S., Europe, and more than 50 countries around the world. The stability, even survival, of democracy is truly at stake.
Unfortunately, liberal democracies are still struggling to confront this multi-front attack on the systems we depend on to share news and ideas with one another. In fact, many of the ad hoc fixes put in place since Brexit and the U.S. election of 2016 are being abandoned by the platform monopolies, or are breaking down under the pressure of AI. And arguably, efforts to revive voluntary measures such as content moderation continue to divert attention from more durable solutions that would protect true freedom of speech and true freedom of the press.
Join Open Markets and The Guardian US on June 27 at the National Press Club in Washington for an urgent discussion to identify solutions to America’s information crisis. We will look at ways to bolster the supply of trustworthy journalism, address the problem of tech platforms manipulating and censoring what individuals read, and stop corporations from taking the work of journalists and publishers without compensation.
This conference will focus on what we can do now to limit the harms this year, and how to prepare today to fully resolve the crisis after the next U.S. elections. We will leverage our unique understanding of the business models of leading tech and AI platforms to structure a fresh conversation among policymakers, journalists, and free speech and free press advocates, on how to protect democracy and national security in the 21st century, and rebuild a more peaceful and forward-looking society.

Host or Publisher Open Markets