Digital Threats On 2020 Elections; Texas Public Radio, January 11, 2020

Michel Martin, Texas Public Radio; Digital Threats On 2020 Elections

"Siva Vaidhyanathan has been writing about these concerns. He is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. We spoke earlier about why he thinks digital democracy will face its greatest test in 2020."

"MARTIN: Do you have a sense of, you know, based on your research and that of others, whether there is some throughline to these groups that are engaging in these disinformation campaigns around the world? Like, what's their end goal? Do we - is there, say, a single source or a few sources - is there anything - you know, what do we know?

VAIDHYANATHAN: There doesn't seem to be a single source, but there seems to be thematic coherence. In other words, if there is an extreme authoritarian political force in the Philippines - and there is - and there's an extreme authoritarian political force in Ukraine - let's say trying to be imposed from across the border in Russia - those forces are going to learn from each other. It's very easy to mimic the strategy of another one. So what it means is if you're of that ilk, if you want to disrupt democracy and undermine any form of governance that might support the rule of law and limit corruption, et cetera, you are going to try to flood the political sphere with nonsense, with stuff that will divide society, stuff that will turn people against each other, especially against minorities or against immigrants."