When they last sat down for an interview, in November 2020, Barack Obama told Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg that disinformation is “the single biggest threat to our democracy.” The threat was not a new one, he said, but it was accelerating. It has continued to accelerate since. A month and a half after that conversation, a violent mob stormed the Capitol, driven by the false belief that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump and could be taken back by force. Over the past year, COVID conspiracism has likely cost thousands of lives. Russia has mounted a massive disinformation campaign to justify its invasion of Ukraine. Yesterday, at Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy, a conference hosted by The Atlantic and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, Obama and Goldberg spoke once again about the threat of disinformation and what we can do to stop it. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
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Source: Barack Obama on Disinformation and Ukraine | The Atlantic