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Profs and Pints presents: “The Next Big Internet Threat,” a look at faked depictions as a weapon for damaging real people, with Joshua A. Geltzer, founding executive director and visiting professor of law at Georgetown’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
Americans are worried about what’s happening online, and they should be. In recent months, we’ve seen social turmoil over the deletion of controversial accounts from digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter; public disclosure of criminal charges for continuing Russian interference in our elections; and new types of disinformation operations emanating from Moscow, Tehran, and even here in the United States.
But these latest incidents are only part of a far bigger trend. In our novel digital age, it has become far too easy for bad actors to spread harmful content far and wide, swiftly and with just the click of a button.
All told, the Internet age has seen four major waves of digital threats. First came child pornography. Next came trolling. Then we endured terrorist recruitment and radicalization online. And most recently we’ve suffered from foreign election interference. None of these challenges has been entirely resolved, and the more recent of them remain serious threats, not just to the integrity of online dialogue but to American security and democracy. But the fifth wave is now fast upon us—and it might prove the thorniest of all. Call it “reputational exploitation.” It’s the false disparagement of others–other individuals, other companies, even other governments–for one’s own benefit. And it’ll only get more effective through the use of “deep fakes,” which play off the universal temptation to equate seeing with believing, and artificial intelligence, which can tailor reputational assaults to particular micro-audiences to maximize their effectiveness.
Join Professor Joshua Geltzer of Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection to discuss the waves of digital threats we’ve endured and those yet to come. He’ll discuss these challenges, the responses so far, and what more needs to be done to protect our digital domain and, ultimately, ourselves. (Advance tickets: $12. Doors $15, save $2 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Please arrive in plenty of time to place any order and be seated and settled in.)
