December 4, 2024 • 35 mins
This time my guest is Dr Emma Briant, globally renowned researcher on misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. We had a great chat about how these are now the new battlegrounds and how data underpins them. Of course we mentioned the US (a bit). Emma shared her new research and some other resources such as her Patreon. I commend all these resources to you – they are amazing resources for understanding this hotly contested area.
Resources and links
- Website: http://emma-briant.co.uk/
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/emmalbriant
- Book: Routledge Handbook of the Influence Industry
- Udemy course: https://www.udemy.com/course/propaganda-disinformation-level-1-beginners/?referralCode=F6D164B12D33A03ADF60
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmalbriant/
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/emmalbriant.bsky.social
- Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/@emmalbriant
- Twitter: @Emmalbriant
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the Data Revolution podcast.
(00:18):
Today, my guest is Dr Emma Bryant, who's one of the world's leading experts on information warfare and propaganda.
I wanted to have a chat with her because you know data is information and there is a war going on, so welcome Emma.
Oh, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be on the podcast with you Kate.
And it's great that we're actually in the same time zone. I was cyber stalking you for ages trying to work out when we might be able to do it.
(00:44):
So it was really good to have you come down here to Australia.
Yes, and it's been really interesting learning about, you know, data and propaganda in the Australian context as well, which is all a little bit new to me.
And, you know, I think before I came here, I imagined, you know, down under was this peaceful place with all the beautiful animals and so on and couldn't possibly have similarities to, you know, problems I've experienced elsewhere.
(01:13):
And, you know, unfortunately, these are problems we face in all parts of the world. So I'm seeing just how many of the parallels there are to, you know, issues of radicalization and the role of data misuse and privacy problems that are, you know, driving these kinds of disinformation campaigns down here as well.
(01:39):
So what are you seeing as a big threat that you're seeing nowadays?
Crumbs. Well, you know, at the moment, I'm very focused on the United States, if I'm honest, because I think we all are. Yes.
Unfortunately, as well, I think a lot of the politics flows from there to elsewhere, you know, partly because of America's, you know, longstanding economic dominance in the West.
(02:07):
But also just because of deliberate political influence efforts.
So, since I moved to Australia, for example, I've written articles about how the US far right is trying to influence Aussie politics and, you know, sending people like Tucker Carlson over here.
(02:33):
This is also connected to Russia's effort to influence, of course.
But, you know, I think one of the problems has been that, you know, the United States has been on this authoritarian trajectory.
And unfortunately, you know, management of information, information warfare, the data side of propaganda operations has, you know, gone to a whole new level in the last 10 years.
(03:08):
So I have recently published a book with my co editor, Vian Bakia called the Routledge Handbook on the influence industry. And in that book, we sort of define this, this new infrastructure as comprising deliberate attempts to advance an
actor's goal, be it for profit, political power or influence, that's often involving coordinated interplays between the private sector, the state, and political actors operating as interconnected systems to employ information
(03:43):
to the production section. So there's your data part of it, an analysis such as data driven profiling, for instance, of unsuspecting audiences, and using that of course to then distribute and deploy propaganda deception, or other forms of information
to encourage behavior change. What we've seen is a transition to a whole new infrastructure of delivery around this kind of industry. And that is becoming more and more intricate in its fusion with the state.
(04:21):
So I think that is, you know, exemplified in a very clear way through the relationship between Trump now and Elon Musk, and the role Elon Musk, and his business interest played in both, you know, getting Trump back into power, but also now he's in power,
(04:43):
exploiting the destruction of the United States government, and, you know, institution of techno fascism, which we see arising. So I think the role of data and all of that is quite complex, of course.
And I think, you know, some of your listeners might find the book interesting, it is try I've tried to write it for a fairly to it in the show notes.
(05:10):
Okay, great. Yes. So, myself and my co authors, there's a lot of contributors to the book, who have specialization in this kind of area across the world, we've got, you know, five continents represented in the in the book so it's it's quite a
very expansive study. And I think people will find it quite accessible as well. So we tried to write not just for academics but for a larger audience because this is such an important subject for people to understand and start to get a grip on.
(05:48):
And I think that's a longer just as a point where we have distributing propaganda via the internet, you know, I think people have our understandings, popularly of propaganda and disinformation is is still quite, you know, latched on to what it used to be back in
(06:10):
1939, perhaps like a or even back in 1939. You know, even yes. But I mean, I think some people, you know, a lot of people have have more of an idea of like, of sort of targeted advertising since the great hat came out the role I was as senior
(06:31):
president, which exposed the cable genelidica scandal. Now I think that sort of started people thinking and understanding the role of like Facebook and other digital platforms in, you know, gathering massive amounts of data on them and sort of helping all sorts of people
to get their data, but also, you know, political parties and so on, with targeting data, targeting using data. But, you know, we have gone beyond that to a point where these kinds of especially in the United States, this kind of surveillance platform economy is all around us we are increasingly dependent
(07:15):
on it and unable to extract ourselves from it and operate as humans without it. And so Facebook because all my ancient relatives are on it. And I don't know if you'll be there but you know, if I want to stay in touch with them.
Absolutely. It's the right way to do it.
I mean, I'm in, obviously, miles and miles away from my home, it's a British. And so, you know, I have relatives in the UK who, you know, want to communicate via WhatsApp, and that's obviously Facebook.
(07:52):
Now, you know,
I recently added AI to make it even more joyful. Indeed. So there's a lot of problems anyway. You know, and it is it's very difficult to extract yourself I do have sympathy with that.
I try to minimize the number of apps on my phone and only download new things. If I check their privacy first and make sure that I absolutely have to have it. Most stuff I try to just go through a private browser, like brave, or duck duck go and go through into a website and login that
(08:31):
is more than downloading an app to my phone. So I have as minimal number of apps on my phone as possible.
I counted a win that I managed to get all of my most close family over onto signal.
And that is obviously the best if you can. Unfortunately, my, my father is very old and he's, he really can't get to do new apps. So I've had to, you know, use that for him but unfortunately, the not everyone is able to sort of get to know a new app.
(09:06):
And the other problem is I think a lot of these technologies are kind of exclusionary for elderly people and people with disabilities. The, you know, not not signal particularly but like the fact that a lot of services for instance, are being now delivered only through
like community services that we used to have a little Lotus board in our communities or we used to, you know, do organize charity or collections or community events through, you know, other through the local newspaper or your community notice board.
(09:42):
This local newspaper is dead because I think they killed it.
Yeah, you just don't find out about things anymore unless you have Facebook so it really makes people reliance on it.
Yes, I think, and that obviously means it's, it's gathering so much data about all of us they have more data than you know governments do and
(10:05):
I always like to tell people who go very virtuously I don't have Facebook. It's okay they've got a profile on you anyway.
Yes.
And they know who your family and friends are anyway.
Other people add data about you and they can track you when you're not on the website even so it's that yeah they have these kind of skeleton profiles for anybody in the hopes that one day you'll come back in.
(10:30):
You've probably been on there at some point.
Interesting question though. How, how do you think that that we were in the age of surveillance capitalism that is now hostage to various authoritarian regime shall we say, you know,
(10:51):
What, what's easier a road out of this.
Oh my God, I am currently trying to grapple with that. Honestly, with the United States elections, having gone the way that they have.
It's hard to imagine one for the United States anyway.
(11:13):
And these companies the ones that we are most dependent on are in America and are part of its politics and I find it hard to imagine that the government's going to change in four years.
Now that Trump has the degree of power to which he has and is able to, you know, transform the education system.
(11:42):
And they're able to essentially demolish parts of government. They're planning on actually getting rid of the Department of Education and things like this.
So I've actually read project 2025. Yeah, there's a lot of really scary stuff in it. I will put a link to that in the show notes too for those who have not read it yet.
I also, yes, you should because people should know about this but I have also written an article that is coming out very soon in index on censorship about the threat to freedom of speech of what Trump is trying to do with project 2025.
(12:17):
And in particular academic freedom because he's going after universities he's planning on defunding all of the universities and anybody who any any university where they've had like protests going on is going to lose all federal funding.
And so what they're trying to do is essentially, you know, universities are dependent on students coming in with loans. Now, the Department of Education actually oversees kind of loans and things like this.
(12:52):
They, they give out federal funding to two universities. And this is contingent on accreditation.
And the accreditation, it takes place at a state level. So now he has kind of Republican Congress as well.
They can try to change the legislation that governs this whole accreditation of universities system in order to encourage new accreditors that are going to have a particular ideological agenda.
(13:28):
And without accreditation, universities can't get access to federal funds, which means student loans, which means all sorts of funding for research and so on.
And a lot of universities are dependent on this kind of funding.
Not all, it will affect some more than others, but he's also going after universities that have endowments and things like this. So places that are some of the most prestigious universities in America like Harvard, for instance, they're planning on suing
(14:01):
on the grounds of civil rights discrimination, things like this, and reinterpretation, if you like, of that legislation to stop on the grounds that the protests that we've been seeing are an attack on people's civil rights.
(14:22):
So we should make the point, though, that this is not Trump, because Trump literally doesn't have two ideas in his head, I don't believe. It's the Heritage Foundation and the right wing Christian Nationalists.
So the new apostolate.
We've got him into power.
This is how he's obviously rewarding them. But it's also, you know, the Republicans in Congress too, because he can't do this without them.
(14:47):
So this is very much a partnership in order to, you know, this is why they elected him. Yeah, because he's agreed to do this basically for them.
And the plan has been laid out, as you say, by the Heritage Foundation, which is of course supported by, you know, the Koch Brothers and has been a long term, long standing conservative think tank driving into, you know, really quite
(15:16):
extreme conservative thought, especially today.
I think people tended to think in the past that the Heritage Foundation was more moderate.
And so some people didn't see this coming in.
In a short way.
Yeah, I mean, I find this quite amazing because, you know, they were also involved with the mercers who were behind Cambridge Analytica.
(15:44):
So I'm finding this quite funny that that people didn't quite realize how bad Heritage Foundation was.
But yeah, it's been a long standing force trying to create what we are seeing today.
And the plan to demolish the Department of Education is not Trump's.
It is one that has been a favorite of many Republicans for a long time. Yeah.
(16:08):
You know, so one of the questions that that loops to my mind is with that kind of authoritarian regime that is now in place in the US with authoritarian regime similarly sympathetic in states.
People's data can be used against them in ways that people haven't yet imagined.
(16:31):
So, you know, if you're using if you're a woman who's using a period tracker app, and you want to cross a state border to get an abortion, they can work out you're going to do that.
And, and, you know, can bring in arrests already, I believe. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's very scary.
(16:52):
There are also. So one of the things Trump wants to do is set up what he's called the American Academy, which is essentially going to be paid for by the money that he is going to sue out of the universities in downments.
Yeah. So he's taking this money finding suing them all, and then going to set up what he's calling the American Academy, which sounds like an online platform for degrees and education and so forth.
(17:26):
That will be, you know, AI generated education. So Trump University with AI.
No, yes, exactly. No professors need it. Yeah. So this is what I'm going to write in my article. Will you those degrees very favorably.
But the thing is they're free. And one thing that America has had a problem with for years is the expensive education system. Yeah.
(17:53):
A lot of Americans get into a lot of debt doing degrees. And then the problem is that, you know, they are going to make these student loans ridiculously difficult to for people to get because they're going to be private loans only and so forth and no, no
more forgiving of student loans. And at the same time, create this like free system, and the courses are going to be recognized, accredited, and any government agency will recognize them any government contractor will recognize them.
(18:33):
So that's a heck of a lot of employers, right? It's a really, I mean, it will be an attractive way for some people to easily get a what will be recognized like it's a degree.
Yeah, it's not a degree. Yeah.
But it will be an easy way to do this. And because it's like all these online platforms, right, they're going to be generating an awful lot of behavioral data, I would imagine, while they are doing these courses.
(19:03):
I imagine that this also will be part of the benefits for the companies that are going to be the industry partners running this American, you know, Academy.
So this whole pseudo, you know, educational indoctrination platform, I'm not going to call it an Academy because it isn't yeah.
(19:30):
It's essentially going to be, you know, the mass education platform that people can take advantage of, yeah, which is going to give them some kind of like thing that is considered to be like a degree.
Yeah, within.
We can already see the trajectory for education with what Victor Orban's done in Hungary.
(19:54):
It's very it's got a lot of parallels to this, although his Academy is his university is still populated by professors at least, but they are, you know, you know, he's he's some for those who don't know actually one university out of the country because they refuse to stop teaching
things that he didn't approve of.
(20:16):
And he's then taken over the other universities and made them aligned to his way of thinking.
So he's entirely changed the educational system and this is a really good parallel actually, except that Trump is doing it in this kind of data driven way.
Yeah, because actually this online university platform thing, it doesn't even require a staff, you know, this is like, you know, the perfect example of the kinds of downsizing and efficiency version of government.
(20:51):
We're likely to see with the.
Dr. is wants to say the in shitification.
Yes, indeed, indeed.
Exactly.
And poor people who can't afford to actually have a proper education are going to end up with this, you know, crappy version of it that's generated by a I and, you know, essentially this gets a stab of approval because you know you don't really need an educated workforce anymore when you know you can win your
(21:20):
elections with this information and populism and you're trying to build an authoritarian state, you know, the actual, you know, having people within your society who are thinking beings is not.
You don't want that.
You don't want that.
You don't want to.
Exactly.
So it's a horrifying direction we're going in with this.
(21:43):
Yeah.
And I think this also will start, you'll see with universities that have also had, you know, their endurance purged, they're, you know, being they're struggling now to get federal funds because they have the changes to the
accreditation system. And they are now losing students because they're, they have to actually pay people salaries and this American Academy is delivering them for free by AI.
(22:14):
And, you know, so the universities are going to be also then driven to these kinds of AI generated systems and, you know, copbacks and cost effectiveness and ed tech that spies on you.
And universities in the US that I know of that are already fairly far down that path.
(22:35):
And indeed in Australia. Yes.
Actually, I would say.
So I think this is, this is something that's happening already. But oh my God, have we not seen anything yet.
And I, I'm worried about the future beyond just the American Academy, you know,
one of my, one of my, one of my, my degrees is in tertiary education.
(23:00):
And, you know, there was a lot of literature about the corporatization of higher education being essentially bad for it. And that was before AI came out.
So you've got the corporatization of education and now you've got AI sprinkled on top, which makes it just worse.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
And the combination of that with the state as well. So, you know, essentially policy is being made in order to enable this tech sector. Yeah.
(23:32):
So the two are almost intertwined government is the tech sector and its interests. And so I think that is also a very dangerous dimension.
And I think that you've got Elon Musk going into incredibly important diplomatic meetings as well.
Like, means that this is also going to be something that will shape the way that policy is being planned in other parts of the world. Yeah.
(24:00):
I always do it. I always do a bingo card for each year in January, where I write down my existential breads, get them out of my head.
I've got my bingo card for 2025. I've got Elon Musk either loses his citizenship or goes to jail.
Oh, you think because there's the inevitable bust up with Trump because nobody nobody is needy as him can be with Trump for too long.
(24:26):
I get that, you know, and that obviously happened with ban on two in a sense, but ban on isn't exactly working against Trump.
We also see, you know, I don't think that that's likely to happen with Musk.
I think he's too powerful and he has an alignment of interests with Trump, regardless of, you know, interpersonal relations.
(24:52):
He has an alignment of interest with the Heritage Foundation. Yeah. Yeah.
His family, his parents have an alignment of interests with the Heritage Foundation.
So, you know, you can't underestimate the fellow traveler effect.
Exactly. Yeah. So I don't think he's going anywhere. I mean, I, he may not.
(25:16):
The relationship may change and his involvement may change, but I still think he's going to be a significant factor across this year personally.
He drops dead tomorrow. His organizations will continue working with the US government.
That's not going to change. No, no, he's going to be even more integrated. Yeah, once he's in Doge, this kind of Department of Government.
(25:43):
Extraction, should we say extraction.
One of the things that the Heritage Foundation has been busily doing is collecting lists of people who don't think properly in public sector roles.
So they have lists of people that they want to take out in the first couple of months.
(26:06):
Yeah, it's with loyalists and it's really fascinating to me because there's a historian of Nazi Germany.
It does really seem reminiscent of the first two years of the Nazi regime.
Well, you know, I mean, I know a lot of people are actually just trying to get out because they're scared.
(26:29):
I think they are expecting mass arrests as well, not just that people will lose their jobs.
So I think, you know, anybody who has been a part of the effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for his crimes, anybody who has tried to fight for democracy over the last four years.
(26:53):
Anybody who has tried to go back, scenes, get out. I've been joking. It's trying to get out. Those people should be out of the country and in a non extradition jurisdiction.
But then where does that leave America? If you take anybody who might be the resistance out again.
(27:15):
I think this is part of the problem that we've seen as well with places, you know, like Russia, you need, you know, if if if dissidents all have to leave, yeah, you end up with a very difficult situation within the country where, you know, there really is a very problematic resistance and not
an effective resistance within the, the regime because it just can't exist. And if this happens in the United States, it's going to make things much, much more problematic over the next sort of five to 10 years, you know, we need that resistance to still exist and survive.
(27:53):
It needs to adapt. We need to be more transnational. And people need to actually support Americans. And I know that's like a bit antithetical to what Australians and British people and Europeans particularly feel like they want to do.
I think a lot of people look at America and think, oh my God, they're messing it up for the world. And, you know, and, you know, they are stupid. But actually, the reality is that these things are more complicated than just stupid Americans messing it up for the world.
(28:27):
Actually, we need to also recognize that people are being lied to that this is systemic. This is about inequalities. This is about, you know, the rise of a techno fascist state that people can't necessarily see out of or control as it is absorbing their lives.
And so, the thing is, is that fascism is an inherently fragile political way of being and people don't realize that because it's all of the things that they do like hiring cronies to do jobs that need expertise and all of that stuff makes it an inherently fragile structure.
(29:06):
But, you know, as we've seen with Russia, you can have an inherently fragile state exist for a very long time. And the thing that I keep telling people is Russia, whenever it falls apart, it falls apart really suddenly.
But when you look back, you can see the signs. Like it happens overnight, like the like peristraica. You know, nobody saw that coming. But when you look back, you can see signs. So that's how it really is.
(29:32):
The reality is those people who were powerful in the prior administration prior state remained powerful within the new, the new state. Yeah. So you end up with people who were, you know, part of the intelligence community, being part of the next intelligence
community. And the, you know, the systems of the state of state power remain, you know, with certain parallels, certain oligarchs might be replaced with new oligarchs, but actually a lot of them stayed the same, the powerful people stay the same.
(30:07):
And so, you know, I think that is also a bit of a problem. It's, it seems like it's a new infrastructure, but the reality is that these things, you know, these the corruption allows it to have a similar structure and systems.
And if the corruption benefits people still, it will still continue. So I think, you know, you might be right with America, it's, I think the problem is going to be the corruption. Yeah, which is how a lot of this has been enabled in the first place.
(30:45):
It's about to go, it's about to be on steroids. Yeah. And when that benefits people, that means that the, if they can manage it, if they can manage the corruption in a way that it's sustainable, then, then that's a system that is quite hard to actually do anything about.
(31:06):
You know, you've got you've got really interesting examples like Russia where the corruption is endemic. And to the level where their military wasn't maintained, even though millions have been put into it, so that when they invaded Ukraine, they didn't have
forces that they thought they had, they didn't have the tires on the trucks that had been replaced. Yeah, so you know, there are things.
(31:31):
The worry is that America is okay, so there's still been corruption, yeah, before this moment, yeah, but but America is way more powerful and way more equipped than Russia. Yeah. And it's a very dangerous state to have rising as a fascist power.
It has that infrastructure in a way that Russia doesn't because it's been holiday.
(31:56):
Yeah, yeah. Good point. So that is the worry, I think.
I think they're about to hollow out their military with their councils for checking if generals have the right ideology.
Yes. True. Yeah, I mean, they're even talking about removing all women as well. So yeah, I'll see what happens. But, you know, I mean, you're right, there will be things that they do that are counterproductive to their own interests because of their
(32:25):
ideologies, but I don't think that necessarily is going to make this something that is easy to handle.
They're not going anywhere after four years, that's my opinion. Yeah, I think you're right. Unfortunately, they are trying to create the conditions to stay in power.
That's that's what's going to happen. So the worry is there will be a faux democracy. Yeah, the look of elections, but the reality is no longer a democracy.
(32:54):
Well, arguably, then the Nazi regime could still be in power today if they had not been subsist with getting rid of Jews, because apart from that, they were everybody kind of like them.
Yeah, God, that's a complicated one.
But just saying, you know, like the thing that made them, they were they they diverted power from their war to to axe to axe down the against the Jews. If they had put all of those resources into the war, they probably have one.
(33:29):
Yeah, maybe I don't know.
One of those bodies, one of those bodies.
Yeah, sorry, I didn't really prepare to talk about World War Two. But yeah, let's let's leave that one. I think it's a bit complicated.
Anyway, it's been a really interesting chat. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today.
(33:50):
Thank you for inviting me on the show. I really appreciate it. If any of your listeners might want to check out my other work I have a Patreon. I appreciate any support for that is very cheap to sign up for the lowest level only $3 a month for that.
And I have a website as well where you can sign up for my newsletter, which is free. And there's a lot of resources also in the Patreon that are free to. So for instance, there's a glossary on propaganda and a propaganda bibliography as well.
(34:26):
So I try to add free resources to people there too, if it's helpful to them.
We'll put links to all of those in the show notes. Emma has some amazing resources. I'm often looking in there so it's all good and there's a lot of good free stuff but worth subscribing to her Patreon.
Thanks for listening to me about buying. Thanks a lot Kate. Bye everyone.
(34:47):
And that is it for another episode of the Data Revolution podcast. I'm Kate Crothers. Thank you so much for listening. Please don't forget to give the show a nice review and a like on your podcast app of choice. See you next time.
Welcome to another episode of the Data Revolution podcast.
(00:18):
Today, my guest is Dr Emma Bryant, who's one of the world's leading experts on information warfare and propaganda.
I wanted to have a chat with her because you know data is information and there is a war going on, so welcome Emma.
Oh, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be on the podcast with you Kate.
And it's great that we're actually in the same time zone. I was cyber stalking you for ages trying to work out when we might be able to do it.
(00:44):
So it was really good to have you come down here to Australia.
Yes, and it's been really interesting learning about, you know, data and propaganda in the Australian context as well, which is all a little bit new to me.
And, you know, I think before I came here, I imagined, you know, down under was this peaceful place with all the beautiful animals and so on and couldn't possibly have similarities to, you know, problems I've experienced elsewhere.
(01:13):
And, you know, unfortunately, these are problems we face in all parts of the world. So I'm seeing just how many of the parallels there are to, you know, issues of radicalization and the role of data misuse and privacy problems that are, you know, driving these kinds of disinformation campaigns down here as well.
(01:39):
So what are you seeing as a big threat that you're seeing nowadays?
Crumbs. Well, you know, at the moment, I'm very focused on the United States, if I'm honest, because I think we all are. Yes.
Unfortunately, as well, I think a lot of the politics flows from there to elsewhere, you know, partly because of America's, you know, longstanding economic dominance in the West.
(02:07):
But also just because of deliberate political influence efforts.
So, since I moved to Australia, for example, I've written articles about how the US far right is trying to influence Aussie politics and, you know, sending people like Tucker Carlson over here.
(02:33):
This is also connected to Russia's effort to influence, of course.
But, you know, I think one of the problems has been that, you know, the United States has been on this authoritarian trajectory.
And unfortunately, you know, management of information, information warfare, the data side of propaganda operations has, you know, gone to a whole new level in the last 10 years.
(03:08):
So I have recently published a book with my co editor, Vian Bakia called the Routledge Handbook on the influence industry. And in that book, we sort of define this, this new infrastructure as comprising deliberate attempts to advance an
actor's goal, be it for profit, political power or influence, that's often involving coordinated interplays between the private sector, the state, and political actors operating as interconnected systems to employ information
(03:43):
to the production section. So there's your data part of it, an analysis such as data driven profiling, for instance, of unsuspecting audiences, and using that of course to then distribute and deploy propaganda deception, or other forms of information
to encourage behavior change. What we've seen is a transition to a whole new infrastructure of delivery around this kind of industry. And that is becoming more and more intricate in its fusion with the state.
(04:21):
So I think that is, you know, exemplified in a very clear way through the relationship between Trump now and Elon Musk, and the role Elon Musk, and his business interest played in both, you know, getting Trump back into power, but also now he's in power,
(04:43):
exploiting the destruction of the United States government, and, you know, institution of techno fascism, which we see arising. So I think the role of data and all of that is quite complex, of course.
And I think, you know, some of your listeners might find the book interesting, it is try I've tried to write it for a fairly to it in the show notes.
(05:10):
Okay, great. Yes. So, myself and my co authors, there's a lot of contributors to the book, who have specialization in this kind of area across the world, we've got, you know, five continents represented in the in the book so it's it's quite a
very expansive study. And I think people will find it quite accessible as well. So we tried to write not just for academics but for a larger audience because this is such an important subject for people to understand and start to get a grip on.
(05:48):
And I think that's a longer just as a point where we have distributing propaganda via the internet, you know, I think people have our understandings, popularly of propaganda and disinformation is is still quite, you know, latched on to what it used to be back in
(06:10):
1939, perhaps like a or even back in 1939. You know, even yes. But I mean, I think some people, you know, a lot of people have have more of an idea of like, of sort of targeted advertising since the great hat came out the role I was as senior
(06:31):
president, which exposed the cable genelidica scandal. Now I think that sort of started people thinking and understanding the role of like Facebook and other digital platforms in, you know, gathering massive amounts of data on them and sort of helping all sorts of people
to get their data, but also, you know, political parties and so on, with targeting data, targeting using data. But, you know, we have gone beyond that to a point where these kinds of especially in the United States, this kind of surveillance platform economy is all around us we are increasingly dependent
(07:15):
on it and unable to extract ourselves from it and operate as humans without it. And so Facebook because all my ancient relatives are on it. And I don't know if you'll be there but you know, if I want to stay in touch with them.
Absolutely. It's the right way to do it.
I mean, I'm in, obviously, miles and miles away from my home, it's a British. And so, you know, I have relatives in the UK who, you know, want to communicate via WhatsApp, and that's obviously Facebook.
(07:52):
Now, you know,
I recently added AI to make it even more joyful. Indeed. So there's a lot of problems anyway. You know, and it is it's very difficult to extract yourself I do have sympathy with that.
I try to minimize the number of apps on my phone and only download new things. If I check their privacy first and make sure that I absolutely have to have it. Most stuff I try to just go through a private browser, like brave, or duck duck go and go through into a website and login that
(08:31):
is more than downloading an app to my phone. So I have as minimal number of apps on my phone as possible.
I counted a win that I managed to get all of my most close family over onto signal.
And that is obviously the best if you can. Unfortunately, my, my father is very old and he's, he really can't get to do new apps. So I've had to, you know, use that for him but unfortunately, the not everyone is able to sort of get to know a new app.
(09:06):
And the other problem is I think a lot of these technologies are kind of exclusionary for elderly people and people with disabilities. The, you know, not not signal particularly but like the fact that a lot of services for instance, are being now delivered only through
like community services that we used to have a little Lotus board in our communities or we used to, you know, do organize charity or collections or community events through, you know, other through the local newspaper or your community notice board.
(09:42):
This local newspaper is dead because I think they killed it.
Yeah, you just don't find out about things anymore unless you have Facebook so it really makes people reliance on it.
Yes, I think, and that obviously means it's, it's gathering so much data about all of us they have more data than you know governments do and
(10:05):
I always like to tell people who go very virtuously I don't have Facebook. It's okay they've got a profile on you anyway.
Yes.
And they know who your family and friends are anyway.
Other people add data about you and they can track you when you're not on the website even so it's that yeah they have these kind of skeleton profiles for anybody in the hopes that one day you'll come back in.
(10:30):
You've probably been on there at some point.
Interesting question though. How, how do you think that that we were in the age of surveillance capitalism that is now hostage to various authoritarian regime shall we say, you know,
(10:51):
What, what's easier a road out of this.
Oh my God, I am currently trying to grapple with that. Honestly, with the United States elections, having gone the way that they have.
It's hard to imagine one for the United States anyway.
(11:13):
And these companies the ones that we are most dependent on are in America and are part of its politics and I find it hard to imagine that the government's going to change in four years.
Now that Trump has the degree of power to which he has and is able to, you know, transform the education system.
(11:42):
And they're able to essentially demolish parts of government. They're planning on actually getting rid of the Department of Education and things like this.
So I've actually read project 2025. Yeah, there's a lot of really scary stuff in it. I will put a link to that in the show notes too for those who have not read it yet.
I also, yes, you should because people should know about this but I have also written an article that is coming out very soon in index on censorship about the threat to freedom of speech of what Trump is trying to do with project 2025.
(12:17):
And in particular academic freedom because he's going after universities he's planning on defunding all of the universities and anybody who any any university where they've had like protests going on is going to lose all federal funding.
And so what they're trying to do is essentially, you know, universities are dependent on students coming in with loans. Now, the Department of Education actually oversees kind of loans and things like this.
(12:52):
They, they give out federal funding to two universities. And this is contingent on accreditation.
And the accreditation, it takes place at a state level. So now he has kind of Republican Congress as well.
They can try to change the legislation that governs this whole accreditation of universities system in order to encourage new accreditors that are going to have a particular ideological agenda.
(13:28):
And without accreditation, universities can't get access to federal funds, which means student loans, which means all sorts of funding for research and so on.
And a lot of universities are dependent on this kind of funding.
Not all, it will affect some more than others, but he's also going after universities that have endowments and things like this. So places that are some of the most prestigious universities in America like Harvard, for instance, they're planning on suing
(14:01):
on the grounds of civil rights discrimination, things like this, and reinterpretation, if you like, of that legislation to stop on the grounds that the protests that we've been seeing are an attack on people's civil rights.
(14:22):
So we should make the point, though, that this is not Trump, because Trump literally doesn't have two ideas in his head, I don't believe. It's the Heritage Foundation and the right wing Christian Nationalists.
So the new apostolate.
We've got him into power.
This is how he's obviously rewarding them. But it's also, you know, the Republicans in Congress too, because he can't do this without them.
(14:47):
So this is very much a partnership in order to, you know, this is why they elected him. Yeah, because he's agreed to do this basically for them.
And the plan has been laid out, as you say, by the Heritage Foundation, which is of course supported by, you know, the Koch Brothers and has been a long term, long standing conservative think tank driving into, you know, really quite
(15:16):
extreme conservative thought, especially today.
I think people tended to think in the past that the Heritage Foundation was more moderate.
And so some people didn't see this coming in.
In a short way.
Yeah, I mean, I find this quite amazing because, you know, they were also involved with the mercers who were behind Cambridge Analytica.
(15:44):
So I'm finding this quite funny that that people didn't quite realize how bad Heritage Foundation was.
But yeah, it's been a long standing force trying to create what we are seeing today.
And the plan to demolish the Department of Education is not Trump's.
It is one that has been a favorite of many Republicans for a long time. Yeah.
(16:08):
You know, so one of the questions that that loops to my mind is with that kind of authoritarian regime that is now in place in the US with authoritarian regime similarly sympathetic in states.
People's data can be used against them in ways that people haven't yet imagined.
(16:31):
So, you know, if you're using if you're a woman who's using a period tracker app, and you want to cross a state border to get an abortion, they can work out you're going to do that.
And, and, you know, can bring in arrests already, I believe. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's very scary.
(16:52):
There are also. So one of the things Trump wants to do is set up what he's called the American Academy, which is essentially going to be paid for by the money that he is going to sue out of the universities in downments.
Yeah. So he's taking this money finding suing them all, and then going to set up what he's calling the American Academy, which sounds like an online platform for degrees and education and so forth.
(17:26):
That will be, you know, AI generated education. So Trump University with AI.
No, yes, exactly. No professors need it. Yeah. So this is what I'm going to write in my article. Will you those degrees very favorably.
But the thing is they're free. And one thing that America has had a problem with for years is the expensive education system. Yeah.
(17:53):
A lot of Americans get into a lot of debt doing degrees. And then the problem is that, you know, they are going to make these student loans ridiculously difficult to for people to get because they're going to be private loans only and so forth and no, no
more forgiving of student loans. And at the same time, create this like free system, and the courses are going to be recognized, accredited, and any government agency will recognize them any government contractor will recognize them.
(18:33):
So that's a heck of a lot of employers, right? It's a really, I mean, it will be an attractive way for some people to easily get a what will be recognized like it's a degree.
Yeah, it's not a degree. Yeah.
But it will be an easy way to do this. And because it's like all these online platforms, right, they're going to be generating an awful lot of behavioral data, I would imagine, while they are doing these courses.
(19:03):
I imagine that this also will be part of the benefits for the companies that are going to be the industry partners running this American, you know, Academy.
So this whole pseudo, you know, educational indoctrination platform, I'm not going to call it an Academy because it isn't yeah.
(19:30):
It's essentially going to be, you know, the mass education platform that people can take advantage of, yeah, which is going to give them some kind of like thing that is considered to be like a degree.
Yeah, within.
We can already see the trajectory for education with what Victor Orban's done in Hungary.
(19:54):
It's very it's got a lot of parallels to this, although his Academy is his university is still populated by professors at least, but they are, you know, you know, he's he's some for those who don't know actually one university out of the country because they refuse to stop teaching
things that he didn't approve of.
(20:16):
And he's then taken over the other universities and made them aligned to his way of thinking.
So he's entirely changed the educational system and this is a really good parallel actually, except that Trump is doing it in this kind of data driven way.
Yeah, because actually this online university platform thing, it doesn't even require a staff, you know, this is like, you know, the perfect example of the kinds of downsizing and efficiency version of government.
(20:51):
We're likely to see with the.
Dr. is wants to say the in shitification.
Yes, indeed, indeed.
Exactly.
And poor people who can't afford to actually have a proper education are going to end up with this, you know, crappy version of it that's generated by a I and, you know, essentially this gets a stab of approval because you know you don't really need an educated workforce anymore when you know you can win your
(21:20):
elections with this information and populism and you're trying to build an authoritarian state, you know, the actual, you know, having people within your society who are thinking beings is not.
You don't want that.
You don't want that.
You don't want to.
Exactly.
So it's a horrifying direction we're going in with this.
(21:43):
Yeah.
And I think this also will start, you'll see with universities that have also had, you know, their endurance purged, they're, you know, being they're struggling now to get federal funds because they have the changes to the
accreditation system. And they are now losing students because they're, they have to actually pay people salaries and this American Academy is delivering them for free by AI.
(22:14):
And, you know, so the universities are going to be also then driven to these kinds of AI generated systems and, you know, copbacks and cost effectiveness and ed tech that spies on you.
And universities in the US that I know of that are already fairly far down that path.
(22:35):
And indeed in Australia. Yes.
Actually, I would say.
So I think this is, this is something that's happening already. But oh my God, have we not seen anything yet.
And I, I'm worried about the future beyond just the American Academy, you know,
one of my, one of my, one of my, my degrees is in tertiary education.
(23:00):
And, you know, there was a lot of literature about the corporatization of higher education being essentially bad for it. And that was before AI came out.
So you've got the corporatization of education and now you've got AI sprinkled on top, which makes it just worse.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
And the combination of that with the state as well. So, you know, essentially policy is being made in order to enable this tech sector. Yeah.
(23:32):
So the two are almost intertwined government is the tech sector and its interests. And so I think that is also a very dangerous dimension.
And I think that you've got Elon Musk going into incredibly important diplomatic meetings as well.
Like, means that this is also going to be something that will shape the way that policy is being planned in other parts of the world. Yeah.
(24:00):
I always do it. I always do a bingo card for each year in January, where I write down my existential breads, get them out of my head.
I've got my bingo card for 2025. I've got Elon Musk either loses his citizenship or goes to jail.
Oh, you think because there's the inevitable bust up with Trump because nobody nobody is needy as him can be with Trump for too long.
(24:26):
I get that, you know, and that obviously happened with ban on two in a sense, but ban on isn't exactly working against Trump.
We also see, you know, I don't think that that's likely to happen with Musk.
I think he's too powerful and he has an alignment of interests with Trump, regardless of, you know, interpersonal relations.
(24:52):
He has an alignment of interest with the Heritage Foundation. Yeah. Yeah.
His family, his parents have an alignment of interests with the Heritage Foundation.
So, you know, you can't underestimate the fellow traveler effect.
Exactly. Yeah. So I don't think he's going anywhere. I mean, I, he may not.
(25:16):
The relationship may change and his involvement may change, but I still think he's going to be a significant factor across this year personally.
He drops dead tomorrow. His organizations will continue working with the US government.
That's not going to change. No, no, he's going to be even more integrated. Yeah, once he's in Doge, this kind of Department of Government.
(25:43):
Extraction, should we say extraction.
One of the things that the Heritage Foundation has been busily doing is collecting lists of people who don't think properly in public sector roles.
So they have lists of people that they want to take out in the first couple of months.
(26:06):
Yeah, it's with loyalists and it's really fascinating to me because there's a historian of Nazi Germany.
It does really seem reminiscent of the first two years of the Nazi regime.
Well, you know, I mean, I know a lot of people are actually just trying to get out because they're scared.
(26:29):
I think they are expecting mass arrests as well, not just that people will lose their jobs.
So I think, you know, anybody who has been a part of the effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for his crimes, anybody who has tried to fight for democracy over the last four years.
(26:53):
Anybody who has tried to go back, scenes, get out. I've been joking. It's trying to get out. Those people should be out of the country and in a non extradition jurisdiction.
But then where does that leave America? If you take anybody who might be the resistance out again.
(27:15):
I think this is part of the problem that we've seen as well with places, you know, like Russia, you need, you know, if if if dissidents all have to leave, yeah, you end up with a very difficult situation within the country where, you know, there really is a very problematic resistance and not
an effective resistance within the, the regime because it just can't exist. And if this happens in the United States, it's going to make things much, much more problematic over the next sort of five to 10 years, you know, we need that resistance to still exist and survive.
(27:53):
It needs to adapt. We need to be more transnational. And people need to actually support Americans. And I know that's like a bit antithetical to what Australians and British people and Europeans particularly feel like they want to do.
I think a lot of people look at America and think, oh my God, they're messing it up for the world. And, you know, and, you know, they are stupid. But actually, the reality is that these things are more complicated than just stupid Americans messing it up for the world.
(28:27):
Actually, we need to also recognize that people are being lied to that this is systemic. This is about inequalities. This is about, you know, the rise of a techno fascist state that people can't necessarily see out of or control as it is absorbing their lives.
And so, the thing is, is that fascism is an inherently fragile political way of being and people don't realize that because it's all of the things that they do like hiring cronies to do jobs that need expertise and all of that stuff makes it an inherently fragile structure.
(29:06):
But, you know, as we've seen with Russia, you can have an inherently fragile state exist for a very long time. And the thing that I keep telling people is Russia, whenever it falls apart, it falls apart really suddenly.
But when you look back, you can see the signs. Like it happens overnight, like the like peristraica. You know, nobody saw that coming. But when you look back, you can see signs. So that's how it really is.
(29:32):
The reality is those people who were powerful in the prior administration prior state remained powerful within the new, the new state. Yeah. So you end up with people who were, you know, part of the intelligence community, being part of the next intelligence
community. And the, you know, the systems of the state of state power remain, you know, with certain parallels, certain oligarchs might be replaced with new oligarchs, but actually a lot of them stayed the same, the powerful people stay the same.
(30:07):
And so, you know, I think that is also a bit of a problem. It's, it seems like it's a new infrastructure, but the reality is that these things, you know, these the corruption allows it to have a similar structure and systems.
And if the corruption benefits people still, it will still continue. So I think, you know, you might be right with America, it's, I think the problem is going to be the corruption. Yeah, which is how a lot of this has been enabled in the first place.
(30:45):
It's about to go, it's about to be on steroids. Yeah. And when that benefits people, that means that the, if they can manage it, if they can manage the corruption in a way that it's sustainable, then, then that's a system that is quite hard to actually do anything about.
(31:06):
You know, you've got you've got really interesting examples like Russia where the corruption is endemic. And to the level where their military wasn't maintained, even though millions have been put into it, so that when they invaded Ukraine, they didn't have
forces that they thought they had, they didn't have the tires on the trucks that had been replaced. Yeah, so you know, there are things.
(31:31):
The worry is that America is okay, so there's still been corruption, yeah, before this moment, yeah, but but America is way more powerful and way more equipped than Russia. Yeah. And it's a very dangerous state to have rising as a fascist power.
It has that infrastructure in a way that Russia doesn't because it's been holiday.
(31:56):
Yeah, yeah. Good point. So that is the worry, I think.
I think they're about to hollow out their military with their councils for checking if generals have the right ideology.
Yes. True. Yeah, I mean, they're even talking about removing all women as well. So yeah, I'll see what happens. But, you know, I mean, you're right, there will be things that they do that are counterproductive to their own interests because of their
(32:25):
ideologies, but I don't think that necessarily is going to make this something that is easy to handle.
They're not going anywhere after four years, that's my opinion. Yeah, I think you're right. Unfortunately, they are trying to create the conditions to stay in power.
That's that's what's going to happen. So the worry is there will be a faux democracy. Yeah, the look of elections, but the reality is no longer a democracy.
(32:54):
Well, arguably, then the Nazi regime could still be in power today if they had not been subsist with getting rid of Jews, because apart from that, they were everybody kind of like them.
Yeah, God, that's a complicated one.
But just saying, you know, like the thing that made them, they were they they diverted power from their war to to axe to axe down the against the Jews. If they had put all of those resources into the war, they probably have one.
(33:29):
Yeah, maybe I don't know.
One of those bodies, one of those bodies.
Yeah, sorry, I didn't really prepare to talk about World War Two. But yeah, let's let's leave that one. I think it's a bit complicated.
Anyway, it's been a really interesting chat. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today.
(33:50):
Thank you for inviting me on the show. I really appreciate it. If any of your listeners might want to check out my other work I have a Patreon. I appreciate any support for that is very cheap to sign up for the lowest level only $3 a month for that.
And I have a website as well where you can sign up for my newsletter, which is free. And there's a lot of resources also in the Patreon that are free to. So for instance, there's a glossary on propaganda and a propaganda bibliography as well.
(34:26):
So I try to add free resources to people there too, if it's helpful to them.
We'll put links to all of those in the show notes. Emma has some amazing resources. I'm often looking in there so it's all good and there's a lot of good free stuff but worth subscribing to her Patreon.
Thanks for listening to me about buying. Thanks a lot Kate. Bye everyone.
(34:47):
And that is it for another episode of the Data Revolution podcast. I'm Kate Crothers. Thank you so much for listening. Please don't forget to give the show a nice review and a like on your podcast app of choice. See you next time.
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