Confronting the Disinformation Age

Confronting the Disinformation Age

With David Frum, Sue Gardner,
and Christopher Wylie

This event will be live webcast. Visit our YouTube channel to set a reminder.  

SFU Public Square and Vancity are proud to co-present Confronting the Disinformation Age, featuring Canadians David Frum, Senior Editor at The AtlanticSue Gardner, Executive Director of The Markup and former Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation; and Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, in a conversation moderated by the CBC’s Ian Hanomansing.

Information, though fundamental to our existence, has always been vulnerable to manipulation. Today, in what many are calling the “post-truth” era, we’re witnessing an epidemic of disinformation. How did we get here? To what extent has instantaneous access to facts and data eroded, rather than enhanced, our ability to trust others and make informed decisions?

Leading thinkers Frum, Gardner and Wylie will discuss how information is being co-opted, monetized, and polluted in our current context and the impacts on our society. Join us for an informative evening during which we will consider the distortion of our information landscape and how we can all work together to confront it.


Information is fundamental to our existence. Without it, we cannot understand or effectively respond to the events that shape our world. Throughout history, campaigns to deliberately spread false information to influence public opinion or obscure the truth have been launched by individuals, organizations, and governments. But today, we’re living in a new age of information facilitated primarily by digital technology. These advancements offer us extraordinary access to facts and data but also allow for harmful, inaccurate, and manipulated information to be created and disseminated at an unprecedented speed, scope, and scale. Falsehoods are pitted against facts in competition for our attention and technology is used to exploit our cognitive functioning without repercussion. In what is being called the “post-truth” era, the distortion of our information landscape is eroding our trust in institutions, political systems, the media, and each other.

SFU Public Square’s 7th Community Summit will consider how the proliferation of disinformation is impacting society and challenging our capacity to make informed decisions about our economic, social, and political lives. Together, we will co-create strategies to ensure stronger and healthier information ecosystems and stimulate more connected and resilient communities. Join us April 10-18, 2019 in Confronting the Disinformation Age. Learn more at http://www.sfu.ca/publicsquare/commun…

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