13. decembra 2023
On December 12th, 2023, BUEM was visited by Jennifer Casto, who with cooperation of the Embassy of the USA in Slovakia delivered lecture “Disinformation, hoaxes and propaganda as threat to democracy”. Even though the lecturer nowadays works as the PR specialist for the Embassy of the USA in Slovakia, the fact that until September 2022 she worked at Meta as the program manager for support of electoral integrity on Meta platforms and her first-hand experience made the lecture even more interesting.
The lecture was focused on current situation in Slovakia and USA, where the presidential and congressional elections will take place next year. This is also why throughout the lecture were raised possibilities about solving this problem by social media operators, respectively legislation, or non-governmental sector and academia. The lecture was also focused on new context, which is brought by artificial intelligence and lecturer’s experience from projects aimed to increase media literacy, AI literacy and cybersecurity.
Thanks for the questions from the students, there was also discussed current political and social development in Slovakia, similarity with situation in the USA and possibilities of solving this phenomenon, which appears to be new, however has been active part of the political and social life for many centuries.