Event Coverage Highlight
The Foreign Hand: How China, Russia and Iran Are Meddling in American Politics
RSVP Here >>
As a critical election looms on Nov. 5, U.S. government officials are increasingly alarmed that China, Russia and Iran are interfering in the American political process and may be seeking to undermine the credibility of America’s electoral process. Americans have polarized themselves, of course, but these governments are seeking to exacerbate those divisions by generating false posts that appear on social media platforms and by amplifying posts written by U.S. actors at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Their state-supported media such as Moscow’s Russia Today and China’s Global Television Network and TikTok continue to pump out false and misleading information that finds its way to American audiences. America’s Big Tech companies that dominate the country’s social media platforms have retreated from attempting to monitor or curate such content. Another wildcard is the use of Artificial Intelligence to generate false videos.
A final concern is that these players, particularly China and Russia, have penetrated America’s critical infrastructure and may be able to disrupt either the vote-counting itself or the infrastructure that supports it. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says that no American election has ever faced such a complex threat environment.
Registrants will receive a link to join the Zoom webinar on the day of the program.
Panelists:
● David Rohde, national security editor at NBC News. A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting, he previously worked at the New Yorker, Reuters, New York Times and Christian Science Monitor. His latest book is Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI and the War on Democracy.
● Natalia Antelava, editor-in-chief of Coda Story, a non-profit news organization that has won awards for its coverage of disinformation and propaganda. Originally from Tbilisi, Georgia, Antelava is the 2024 Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and was the BBC’s correspondent in Central Asia, Washington, Beirut and New Delhi.
● Gordon Crovitz, co-founder and co-CEO of NewsGuard, which counters disinformation by identifying and analyzing Russian, Chinese and Iranian information operations. Crovitz was publisher of The Wall Street Journal and editor and publisher of the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong.
Moderating will be Scott Kraft, editor-at-large for the Los Angeles Times and president of the Overseas Press Club.
