The Disinfo Detox

🎙️ This week on The Disinfo Detox, civil liberties lawyer and author Heidi Boghosian joins us to expose how the digital world is quietly dismantling democracy — and what we can do to stop it.

In her new book Cyber Citizens: Saving Democracy with Digital Literacy, Boghosian lays out the uncomfortable truth: Big Tech isn’t just eroding privacy — it’s reshaping our rights, behaviors, and systems of power.

Host Nolan Higdon dives into h...

🎙️ This week on The Disinfo Detox, the media literacy wrecking crew is back:
🧠 Nolan Higdon
🧠 Sydney Sullivan
🧠 Dickey (Sidebar Savant)

Together, they dissect the wildest AI mind-benders and media manipulation stories making (and warping) headlines.

We explore:

👉 An actual AI chatbot that manipulated a user by blending fiction and reality—and admitted it.
👉 Trump’s latest stunt: sharing an AI-generated deepfake of Ob...

🎙️ This week on The Disinfo Detox, we’re joined by three powerhouse voices in media analysis:

🧠 Robin Andersen (Fordham University)
🎙️ Mickey Huff (Project Censored, Park Center for Independent Media, Ithaca College)
🔎 Hosted by Nolan Higdon

Together, they unpack the media manipulation machine behind the biggest stories dominating the headlines — and the ones being buried.

We explore:
👉 Why public opinion on Israel and G...

This week on The Disinfo Detox, we go behind the velvet rope of the advertising world with Alessandra Di Lorenzo — former ad industry insider and author of ADJUST: HOW TO SHAPE WHAT YOU THINK.

Host Nolan Higdon digs into what really goes on behind the screens we scroll — and what it means for the future of democracy, education, and digital well-being.

Together, they explore:

👉 How advertising, algorithms, and design manipulate attent...

The Media Literacy Wrecking Crew is back — minus Sydney (she’s out this week), but Nolan Higdon and Dickey are here to break down the headlines the media won’t touch — or totally misrepresents.

In this wild ride of an episode, we unpack:

🕵️ Epstein leaks, cover-ups, and suspicious resignations
💸 OpenAI and Microsoft’s teacher training program — good PR or bad policy?
🧠 Why “neutral” AI is a myth — and what Grok’s Nazi proble...

🎙️ This week on The Disinfo Detox, Nolan’s out — but the Media Literacy Wrecking Crew is IN.
Join Sydney Sullivan and Dickey as they take over the mic for a jam-packed media literacy moment and a sidebar that hits hard.

Together, they unpack:
👉 How media shapes our everyday choices without us even noticing
👉 The subtle (and not-so-subtle) power dynamics in our screen time
👉 And why Project 2025 isn’t just a political...

🎙️ This week on The Disinfo Detox, Sydney Sullivan steps into the host chair to explore a viral TikTok trend — "Man of the Year" — with special guest Allison Butler, media scholar and co-author of The Media and Me.

Together, they break down what this trend reveals about the complex intersections of gender, feminism, and media culture, asking:
👉 What kinds of masculinity are being celebrated?
👉 How does social medi...

🔥 Disinfo Detox goes deep into the GOP’s civil war in the Bluegrass State.

This episode features James Higdon, who served as an At-Large Member of the Republican Party in the state of Kentucky from 2021 to 2025. A former executive board member and political insider, Higdon brings a behind-the-scenes look at the growing rift inside Kentucky’s Republican Party—between establishment figures like Rand Paul and Thomas Massie and the Tru...

🎙️ Disinfo Detox dives deep into the legal drama behind CBS’s $16 million settlement with Donald Trump—and what the press isn't telling you.This episode features Elizabeth Blakey, a cultural sociologist, California lawyer, and professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at California State University Northridge. With a Ph.D. in sociology from Notre Dame and a J.D. from Loyola Law School Los Angeles, Prof. ...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston joins the Disinfo Detox for a no-holds-barred conversation on:

📰 His decades covering corrupt media owners and law enforcement
💰 How the press helped create Donald Trump
📉 What’s really broken in today’s media—and what can still be saved
😮 His reaction to CBS settling with Trump

This episode is packed with insight, outrage, and truth bombs you won’t hear on cable news....

🎧 Disinfo Detox is back with the Media Literacy Wrecking Crew – and we’re smashing through the spin 💥

This week:
🔍 DHS “fact-checking” that’s not really fact-checking
📉 A new study shows HALF of Americans believe falsehoods
🧠 Media literacy tips to cut through the noise
🔥 Dickey’s Sidebar: “No Government” vibes meet Big Tech control
🎲 Trolls or Truth? – Can you tell the difference?

💬 Drop a comment, hit like, a...

The Media Literacy Wrecking Crew is back — Nolan Higdon, Sydney Sullivan, and the one and only Dickey — breaking down the chaotic media coverage surrounding the Iran-Israel-US triangle.

🔍 Was that a ceasefire or just a soundbite?
🎭 Is Jon Stewart the only one calling out Netanyahu’s greatest hits of fear-mongering?
🪖 Are we watching a rerun of 2003 in real time — but this time, with less journalistic courage?

From misleading...

On this episode of The Disinfo Detox, the Media Literacy Wrecking Crew—Nolan Higdon, Dr. Sydney Sullivan, and resident philosopher Dickey—cuts through the spin and breaks down the stories behind the headlines.

We dive into:
🇮🇷 Rising tensions between Israel and Iran—and what the U.S. might do next
🤖 Major legal challenges that could reshape AI tools like ChatGPT
📰 Media framing of the Minnesota shooter and “No Kings” pr...

In this urgent episode of The Disinfo Detox, media historian and Project Censored director Mickey Huff joins Nolan Higdon to expose how U.S. news media has long served as a weapon of war—manipulating public opinion to justify military intervention.

From World War I’s Committee on Public Information to Iraq’s WMD hoax and today's Iran-Israel conflict, Huff walks us through over a century of media manipulation designed to manufact...

In this urgent episode of The Disinfo Detox, historian and UC labor leader Trevor Griffey joins Nolan Higdon to unpack the chaos unfolding at the U.S. Department of Education under Trump’s second term.

Six months in, the Trump administration has banned DEI programs, gutted Title IX protections, slashed nearly a billion in education research, reversed charter school oversight, and stopped investigating book bans. Now, with an executi...

In this powerful episode of The Disinfo Detox, historian and organizer Caroline Luce joins Nolan Higdon to unpack the disturbing reality behind recent ICE raids on LA garment workers, the long history of surveillance in labor movements, and how local communities are fighting back. We break through the media silence to spotlight what's really happening on the ground—and how you can help.

Caroline shares deep historical context on how...

In this eye-opening episode of The Disinfo Detox, economist and author Gary Smith joins Nolan Higdon to break down Apple’s bombshell June 2025 study, The Illusion of Thinking. The research quietly revealed a devastating flaw in the AI arms race: when faced with complex reasoning, large AI models don’t try harder—they simply give up.

Smith, author of The AI Delusion, helps unpack why this study matters, how the tech industry is scram...

🎙️ Welcome to The Disinfo Detox – hosted by Nolan Higdon and the Media Literacy Wrecking Crew: Dickey and Sydney Sullivan!

In this episode, we put on our media literacy goggles and break down four major stories dominating headlines:

🔥 Trump vs. Elon: A war of words with deep media and political implications.
🪧 National Guard vs. Protesters: What’s really going on behind the violent clashes in California over immigration?
🚹 ...

🎧 Welcome to The Disinfo Detox: Media Literacy Wrecking Crew!
The podcast where media literacy meets the headlines—and fake news gets exposed.

Each week, media literacy experts and practitioners join hosts Nolan Higdon and Sydney Sullivan to cut through the spin, uncover what’s missing from the mainstream narrative, and bring media literacy tools to the stories dominating your feed.

🛠️ This week on the Media Literacy Wrecking Cr...