Former president Barack Obama will speak Thursday at a Stanford University forum on media disinformation alongside a group of allies linked to fake news scandals, including his former aide Ben Rhodes.
(Article by Chuck Ross republished from
FreeBeacon.com)
Obama will give the keynote speech at the symposium as part of his personal crusade to fight disinformation in the digital domain. He
announced this week that the Obama Foundation will work with experts to combat disinformation, which he said poses "real challenges" for democracy. Obama
reportedly joined the fight after discussions with Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, who
has funded a network of fake local news sites that push Democratic talking points.
Obama's foray into the debate comes as Democrats have pressured social media companies to aggressively combat disinformation. Speakers at the Stanford
forum will discuss the role of tech companies and the U.S. government in reducing political polarization.
Some of the speakers, including Obama, have themselves been accused of pushing false, politically divisive information, raising questions about their participation in a disinformation event.
Obama was
awarded the 2013 "Lie of the Year" for declaring, "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it," in order to sell Obamacare to the American public. Rhodes, a national security adviser to Obama, admitted in 2016 that
he manipulated journalists in order to push favorable but misleading stories in the media. Rhodes bragged about creating an "echo chamber" of reporters who amplified White House spin. Rhodes also said he "largely manufactured" a narrative about the timeline by which the Obama admvinistration began negotiating with the Iranian government about its nuclear energy program.
Two lesser-known panelists have been at the center of disinformation firestorms. Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change,
repeatedly pushed the false claim that actor Jussie Smollett was the victim of an anti-gay, anti-black hate crime in Chicago in 2019. Robinson pushed the hoax even after evidence emerged that Smollett lied to police about the attack. Renee DiResta, a Stanford researcher moderating a session with Obama,
advised a technology company that created fake Russian bots in order to influence Republican voters in the 2017 Alabama special election. DiResta
told the
Washington Post she knew the tech company was involved in the Alabama race, but she denied knowing about its deceptive tactics.
Robinson and DiResta are speaking on a panel about the U.S. government's role in "facilitating consensus and reducing polarization at home."
In addition to a post at Stanford, DiResta
is a fellow at the Emerson Collective, the media investment company owned by Jobs. The company has invested in outlets like the
Atlantic,
Axios, and
Ozy, a failed pop culture website
under investigation for fraud. Jobs
recently hired a public relations firm, Sunshine Sachs, that has worked for Jussie Smollett and disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
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