Free Expression, Privacy & Data, Tech Talk
Tech Talk: Protecting Journalists and Tackling Fake News
CDT’s Tech Talk is a podcast where we dish on tech and Internet policy, while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. You can find Tech Talk on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Google Play.
What is fake news? Is it it something that is fiction being presented as fact? An opinion posted as a news story? Or is it simply any news story that you don’t like? It seems that the last one is really what many mean, especially when an article or outlet is being shouted down on twitter or called out on Facebook.
Unquestionably, there certainly is non-factual news out there and social media can help in advancing false stories. And yet, when authorities attempt to address this sort of so-called fake news, they often suggest policies that can harm free speech. And it’s also far too common for an authoritarian regime to give journalists the fake news label to discredit them and clamp down on free speech.
In this episode, we talk to Courtney Radsch from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). She has been closely following the issues around the fake news debate and CPJ has been doing incredible work to address it through the lens of protecting journalists around the world. CPJ was also recently featured on Samantha Bee’s Not the White House Correspondents Dinner.
Courtney is author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change.
