In 2018, the tech and democracy activist Yaël Eisenstat joined Facebook as the head of Global Elections Integrity for political ads. Six months later, she left. She was disappointed and disillusioned at how Facebook financially profits from voter manipulation. This, of course, was years before Mark Zuckerberg's recent announcement that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, would get rid of all its fact checkers.

Before joining Facebook, she had worked for years to strengthen and defend democracy—as an intelligence officer at the CIA, a diplomat at the State Department and a White House advisor. These days Eisenstat is a Senior Fellow at Cybersecurity for Democracy, working on policy solutions for how social media, AI-powered algorithms and generative AI affect political discourse, polarization and democracy.

And, as she told our Amsterdam audience on Apri 23, 2024 at Pakhuis de Zwijger, she’s hopeful that change will come one day. But it will be slow. Very slow.

The evening was hosted by the chair of the Foundation for Democracy and Media, Yvonne Zonderop. Click here for the video of the event.

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