Liz Schwartz

Big Tech: Regulation and Moderation

The heads of the “Big Four” tech companies – Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook – are testifying today in front of the House Judiciary Committee as part of the ongoing investigation into potential antitrust violations in the tech industry. The Shorenstein Center’s researchers have long been thinking and writing about the influence of Big Tech

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New COVID Public Opinion Study Finds Declining Approval for Government Executives

The fifth survey conducted by the multi-university COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States, led in part by Shorenstein Center faculty Matthew Baum and Kennedy School Institute of Politics Polling Director John Della Volpe, found that between April and June approval ratings for how governors and the President have handled the COVID-19

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Canaries in the Coal Mine: COVID-19 Misinformation and Black Communities

Even as Black people are disproportionately dying from the virus due to systemic racism, harmful inaccuracies about COVID-19 are metastasizing in Black online spaces. Using multi-site digital ethnography, Shorenstein Center Fellow Brandi Collins-Dexter tracked and identified the spread of this disinformation, and makes recommendations on how to combat it.

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Access to and belief in accurate COVID-19 information varies, according to new survey

The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States’ latest survey results show decreasing trust in government institutions and the police to handle the COVID-19 outbreak, and increasing partisan divides in opinions about the response. In a new feature of the survey, they found that misperceptions about how COVID-19 spreads and can be

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A Black Lives Matter protest in the wake of George Floyd's killing

This is a Moment of Generational Change for Black People – If We Learn the Lessons of the Past

This commentary by Executive Director Setti Warren was first published in The Telegraph (UK) on June 5, 2020. We are living at a time of generational change and if we embrace principles from previous movements, we can alter the lives of future generations.

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Photo of a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis, 2020

George Floyd protests highlight the deep racial disparities in the US

(This article by Shorenstein Center Executive Director Setti Warren first appeared in the UK’s The Telegraph on May 31, 2020.) In February of 1968 the Kerner Commission report was released…to understand the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and provide recommendations for the future. The recent killing of George Floyd shines a light on the fact that more than 50 years later, our cities find themselves in much the same circumstances.

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State Results of May Survey Show 60% of Americans Support Expanding Vote by Mail

The second round of a multi-university project to survey people in all 50 states about their opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic response focused on public opinion around increasing access to vote by mail (VBM) for the upcoming Presidential elections. 60% of respondents across all 50 states said they support making it easier to vote by

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Understanding Misinformation on Mobile Instant Messengers (MIMs) in Developing Countries

This mixed-methods research project in Nigeria, India, and Pakistan consisted of surveys, survey experiments, and semi-structured interviews, designed to better understand the spread and impact of misinformation, and in particular of misinformation on mobile messaging apps (MIMs).

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