Old Tricks, New Tools: Three Keys to Freedom from (Digital) Division & Deception

Information disorder — the toxic mix of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation bad actors use to pollute our collective thinking around important social, economic, and political matters— has become a hot topic in recent years, and for good reason. Virtually all of us have fallen prey to its deceptive, divisive effects in some aspect of our lives, and have felt its demoralizing consequences in our relationships and other issues that affect our shared quality of life. So how can we protect ourselves, our communities, and our causes from the insidious effects of hate and deception?

In this funny, practical talk, longtime civil rights activist and communications strategist Sabrina Joy Stevens exposes the age-old political manipulation tactics at the root of what social scientists now call information disorder. Relying on both personal experience and robust research, she breaks down how bad actors mislead the rest of us into hate and self-sabotage for their own political and economic gain. She also reveals how love, humility, and courage can help us outsmart this kind of manipulation. While the scale of this problem has certainly increased with the advent of new technologies, information disorder is actually a very old, very familiar problem. With the right mindsets and habits, we can come together to make mass deception a thing of the past instead of letting it define our future.