Below The Fold Podcast: Fake news, abortion, and the fight for democracy
Jack Horgan-Jones and Hugh O'Connell are joined by The Observer's Carole Cadwalladr and Gavin Sheridan, formerly of Storyful and now chief executive of Vizlegal
Below the Fold is a podcast from The Sunday Business Post which looks in detail at one issue that affects politics, business, or the economy in Ireland, getting behind the issues that really matter.
In this episode, Jack Horgan-Jones and Hugh O’Connell look at fake news, the abortion referendum and the fight for democracy in the 21st century
They’re joined from London by Carole Cadwalladr of The Observer, who has written about how digital platforms have changed the nature of political campaigning, especially during the Brexit referendum campaign.
Gavin Sheridan, formerly of Storyful and now chief executive of Vizlegal, discusses some of the techniques and tactics used to influence political issues - and the response of the tech companies.
Our first guest was Carole Cadwalladr, who has been writing about how technology, politics and money are interacting in challenging ways for The Observer for well over a year. You can find her workat her Observer author page here.
We also mentionedthis brilliant long piece from the New York Times on like-farms and bot armies and social media's black market.
Our colleagues in The Times Ireland edition recently had a story on how people and organisations which honed their skills in the Brexit referendum campaign have begun to work for pro-life groups.You can read more here
And we spoke with Gavin about the challenge from fake news to Facebook, and how the company is trying - and arguably failing - to tackle it. Much of that conversation was inspired bythis excellent cover story in Wired.
