We have an important guest with a limited timeframe, so we are going to get started. I am ellen weintraub, chair of the federal Election Commission and i am delighted to welcome you to digital disinformation and the threat to democracy, information integrity in the 2020 election. A symposium i am cosponsoring with pan america and the digital policy incubator. This information has become a newly potent threat in the digital era. It has weaponize dare most cherished freedoms, some discord and undermined democracies worldwide. In the west we saw russia deploy disinformation as one of its tools, when, in the words of the mueller report, the russian government interfered in the 2016 president ial election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Alarms are being sounded throughout americas intelligence community, in the halls of congress by the departments of Homeland Security and justice, and by many of the experts who have generously taken time to speak to you today. They worn these attacks ar
[captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [laughter] [applause] thank you. [applause] lets get the show started. I think youre clapping for the governor. Im the Senior Editor at politico in washington, d. C. I think you might be able to hear me now . Lets check this thing on the side. Any better now . Ok, lets do it. Hows that now . Better . Good. Good. We are going to do it. Feedback,for the thats the sort of participation we want over the next 80 minutes, you might be able to tell from my accent im not from around here. We are looking at how we can solve problems and fix americas political system, apparently it is still broken and they need an australian here. But we have just meant to tell us how to fix us its governor steve bullock. And we have a panel of distinguished guests and we will go into the details of working in pieinthesky ideas of how we are going to fix american politics. As an outsider, before we get started, feel free to try some innovations like not ta
Democracy regarding Disinformation Campaigns. The remarks came during the symposium hosted by the office of the federal commission chair, pan america and Stanford University cyber policy centers digital incubator. This is two hours. We have a very important guest with a limited timeframe. So were going to get started. I am Ellen Weintraub, the chair from the federal Election Commission and im delighted to welcome you to digital disinformation and the threat to democracy information integrity in the 2020 elections. A symposium i am cosponsoring with pan america and stanfords Global Policy inkub incubator. This has weaponized our most cherished freedoms to sow disorder. Here in the u. S. , we saw russia deploy disinformation as one of its tools when in the words of the Mueller Report, the russian government interfered in the 2016 president ial election in sweeping and systemic fashion. Alarms are being sounded throughout Americas Intelligence Community in the halls of congress, by the de
Our event today its not just democracy, integrity and elections but in the 2020 elections. Wewe have a time horizon of 14 months. I think michael put it off very well, in terms of what the scenario looks like, its sort of a butterfly ballot on steroids, if we have a close election, if we have a contested result and even just a couple of counties and there has been a Disinformation Campaign that is exposed that may have skewed the results, what i worry about is i dont know how we quite survived second election here in the country, a second president ial election that comes into serious question and at pan america we come at this at slightly different angle, we are freespeech organization and we see guardians of open discourse and of truth and we are not digital specialists, we are not election specialists, we are an organization of writers and journalists and editors and publishers and people who are invested in the quality of our discourse and our ability to sort facts from falsehood a
Obamas. This is one of my pinch mes, to be here with you. [applause] so i want to begin with i was stalking you last night on twitter and dont worry, you wont even know im there. And i noticed a tweet from you that i just want to get a little bit of a read about where we are right now in this moment because this has been a a troubling week for democracy in this country, and you tweeted a statement by the federal Elections Commission Ellen Weintraub expressing her dismay and distress, and the fact that she would not allow her office to endorse or abet a foreign power providing opposition information to a candidate in an election, which donald trump said he would accept. Im just wondering about that, what do you think about this moment and what do we all need to do to ensure that our elections are fair and free from corruption . Well, i have to say, i have conflicting feelings about social media. I have kind of a lovehate relationship with it. In a lot of ways, its brought us together to