In 2018, Yaël Eisenstat joined Facebook as the head of Global Elections Integrity for political ads. Six months later, she left, disappointed and disillusioned, exposing how Facebook profits financially from voter manipulation. In her talk at the John Adams Institute, she will be addressing the outsized and worrisome role that social media and artificial intelligence play in politics, both in the United States and around the world.
The evidence was revealing and disturbing. Facebook allowed political ads and disinformation campaigns to influence the votes of millions of citizens, all the while scraping more data from the citizens they were targeting. These problems and others—like Russian meddling and the troubling rise of “verified” posts—clashed with Eisenstat’s ethics.
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.
Eisenstat is now 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. She has worked at the Anti-Defamation League as their Director of the Center for Tech and Society, published at the world’s most established media outlets, and delivered TedTalks and keynotes across the globe.
Yaël Eisenstat describes herself as someone who goes into the belly of the beast seeking to initiate lasting change. While that change is sometimes slow to come, Eisenstat remains hopeful, if wary. She will share insights into how she combines her professional positions with being an outspoken advocate for the state of democracy: both on and offline. This year, more than half the world’s population heads to the ballot box in democratic elections, providing the perfect opportunity to examine how we could change the cybersphere to benefit, rather than hinder, the democratic process.
The artistic duo Jakob Ganslmeier and Ana Zibelnik will join us on stage to delve into the dangerous and intricate landscape of radicalization within the online realm and through social media channels. Their exhibition GIGA is currently on view at Foam. 
This event is sponsored by Wolters Kluwer.
