When: October 29, 2020 | 16:00-18:00 CET on Zoom
Featuring:
Mille Bøjer, Director, Reos Partners (facilitator)
Lisa Rudnick, Strategic design consultant working on weaponisation of information and digital harm
Helena Puig Larrauri, Co-founder and Director, BuildUp
Digital technologies and social media platforms have the potential to benefit individuals and societies in many positive and important ways. However, their propensity to amplify and accelerate misinformation creates a series of global risks. Disruption fueled by digital misinformation can be seen in a range of areas, including public health and climate change. Misinformation has also played an important role in conflicts in Ukraine, Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Syria; in social tensions in Sri Lanka, DRC, Nigeria, and the United States; and in the radicalization practices of violent extremist groups around the world. Perhaps never before has the world been more attuned to the prevalence of misleading and harmful information in our midst and its impact on political, social, and environmental stability and well-being.
So far, stakeholders have been working to understand how their own areas of responsibility, practice, operations, or business are impacted by, or may play a role in, digital misinformation. The approach has generally been for each individual or group to try to understand present and future implications for themselves in order to figure out what steps might be needed to address these risks. As a result, engagement with misinformation is often conceived and organized around thematic concerns, such as climate, democracy, or health. This trains our attention on the thematic concerns, which is needed. However, it fails to unite diverse stakeholders and decision-makers regarding their shared vulnerability, making it difficult to collaborate and address the shared risk we face.
The mounting sense of uncertainty and urgency presents an impetus for people to think and act differently. At Reos Partners, we see an opportunity to bring people together to consider our shared risk in order to create new and previously unimagined possibilities.
Reos Partners ecosystem events are a space for our diverse stakeholders from across sectors, disciplines, and thematic areas to come together to exchange ideas and make new connections. This event will explore the interplay between misinformation and social cohesion and its implications for the domains in which we work.
This is an open invitation to join a conversation; no prior knowledge of the topic is required. Come join us as we explore this important issue.