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  • ABOUT
  • As seen in
  • TED TALK
  • MEDIA
  • UPCOMING EVENTS
  • CONTACT
  • Yaël eisenstat

    ACTIVIST | LEADER | SPEAKER

    Combating hate, extremism and anti-democratic behavior on- and offline.

     

    As Vice President at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) heading the Center for Technology & Society (CTS), Yaël leads ADL’s efforts to hold tech companies accountable for hate and extremism on their platforms. Yaël works to ensure that online spaces are safe, respectful and inclusive, and helps to lift the voices and experiences of those most impacted by online hate and harassment.

     

    Yaёl joins ADL in October 2022 after spending more than two decades protecting our democracy, including as an intelligence officer, diplomat, and White House advisor. She joined Facebook in 2018 as the head of global elections integrity for political ads, following several years as a vocal critic of the harms that social media has inflicted on democracy and societies worldwide. After leaving Facebook six months later, she spoke openly about the company’s inability to meet its responsibility to secure elections, and she has continued to push for changes in the tech industry.

     

    Yaël also served as the Senior Advisor for Tech and Democracy at the Institute for Security and Technology in 2021-22, was a Future of Democracy Fellow at Berggruen Institute in 2021-22, a Researcher-in-Residence at Betalab in 2020-21, and a Visiting Fellow at Cornell Tech's Digital Life Initiative in 2019-2020, where she focused on technology's effects on discourse and democracy and taught a multi-university course on Tech, Media and Democracy. She was also an Adjunct Professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs in 2017-18.

     

    Yaël has become a key voice and public advocate for transparency and accountability in tech, particularly where real-world-consequences affect democracy and societies around the world. See her 2020 mainstage TED talk on this subject.

     

    Yaël has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Brookings Techstream, TIME, WIRED, Quartz and The Huffington Post, has appeared on CNN, BBC World News, CBS Sunday Morning, Bloomberg News, CBS News, PBS and C-SPAN, in policy forums, and on a number of podcasts. She earned an M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

     

    Photo: On stage at Tech Open Air Berlin, 2017

  • featured in:

  • TED TALK

    Dear Facebook, this is how you're breaking democracy

    TED2020 Mainstage Talk

    "In this bold talk, Eisenstat explores how social media companies like Facebook incentivize inflammatory content, contributing to a culture of political polarization and mistrust -- and calls on governments to hold these platforms accountable in order to protect civil discourse and democracy."

  • MEDIA

    NEWS INTERVIEWS

    CNN Reliable Sources, March 6, 2022: Ukraine war could be 'pivot point' for Big Tech

     

    PBS Newshour, Oct 25, 2021: Interview on Facebook Whistleblower revelations

     

    CNN Anderson Cooper 360, Oct 6, 2021: Interview on the Facebook Whistleblower

     

    CNN Reliable Sources, Sept 19, 2001:

    Part 1: Will 'Facebook Files' revelations spur any real change?

    Part 2: How 'do your own research' hurts America's Covid response

     

    CBS Sunday Morning: A protected right? Free speech and social media

     

    BBC Clicked: Is Big Tech Too Big?

     

    CNN interview on Twitter vs Trump and Facebook, and Section 230 reform

     

    Bloomberg TV: Why the 2020 Election Could Be a Mail-in Nightmare

     CNBC: Facebook's Fight Against Fake News During The 2020 Election

     

    ABC News: Big brands boycott Facebook over hate speech

     

    CBS News interview on Intel Leaks

     

    CNN interview on Trump and the CIA

     

    BBC World News interview on FBI Memo release

     

    Shades of Red and Blue Summit "On the Ground: (4 minute round-up)

     

    PBS Third Rail with OZY: Should America Be the World's Cop

    ARTICLES

    Noema Magazine: The Myth of Tech Exceptionalism: How tech uses the promise of endless innovation to ward off regulating even its present-day harms 

     

    Washington Post: Facebook silences the people who know its operations best: Tech giants use nondisparagement clauses to keep former employees from discussing the companies

     

    The Daily Beast: Believe Me, Mark Zuckerberg Isn't Going to Police Himself; The Oversight Board process isn’t about Donald Trump’s free speech. It’s about Facebook’s power.

     

    Harvard Business Review: How to Hold Social Media Accountable for Undermining Democracy

     

    TechWorker: Facebook employees must see the platform’s dark side too

     

    The Information: The Tech Giants’ Cultures Are Incompatible With Fixing the Societal Problems They’re Causing

    The Guardian: Yaël Eisenstat: 'Facebook is ripe for manipulation and viral misinformation'

     

    Washington Post: I worked on political ads at Facebook. They profit by manipulating us.

     

    Brookings Institution, Techstream: How to Combat Online Voter Suppression

     

    UNC-CITAP and Cornell Tech: Additional Steps Platforms Can Take to Protect the Vote

    Cornell Tech Digital Life Initiative: Section 230 Revisited: Web Freedom vs Accountability

     

    WIRED: The Real Reason Tech Struggles With Algorithmic Bias

     

    NY Times Op-Ed: The Shocking Affront of Donald Trump's C.I.A. Stunt

     

    TIME.com: Former Intel. Official: American Hate Is a Bigger Threat Than Foreign Terrorism

    Quartz: The Enemy Within: a former CIA officer’s plea to America

     

    Huffington Post: Reclaiming Patriotism in Trump's America

    PODCASTS

    Tech Policy Press: Congress vs. Zuckerberg, Dorsey & Pichai

     

    Big Technology Podcast: Who Criticizes the Tech Critics? A Meta Talk With ‘Real Facebook Oversight Board’ Members Carole Cadwalladr and Yael Eisenstat

     

    Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

     

    The Prof G Show with Scott Galloway: Algorithms and the Threats to Democracy 

     

    Infotagion (hosted by British Member of Parliament Damian Collins): Facebook, Elections Integrity, Disinformation, and Accountability

     

    First Contact with Laurie Segall: She Spent 10+ Years at the CIA. It Didn’t Prepare Her for Life at Facebook.

     

    Your Undivided Attention: "With Great Power Comes... No Responsibility?" (Inside Yaël's Facebook story).

     

    Angry Americans: Working Inside the CIA and Facebook... (Note: Interview begins at minute 50).

     

    Good Code: Yael Eisenstat on Facebook and Political Ads

     

    Let’s Talk about the Techlash! Funny as Tech LIVE SHOW, NYC, March 10th, 2020

    Slate podcast, What Next, TBD?: A Former Facebook Insider on Why it's So Hard for the Tech Giant to Get Elections Right

     

    DTNS podcast: Who's Responsible for Tech's Social Disruptions?

     

    TOA.Life podcast: "All-Around Badass Woman"

    TNW (Berlin) podcast: "What Effect is Tech Having on Society?"

     

    Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs podcast: Trump and the Intelligence Community

     

    TALKS | PANELS

    European Parliament special committee on foreign interferences in democratic processes, S&D webinar: Social platforms, foreign interferences, democracy; June 2021

     

    SXSW (socially distant) panel: Section 230 Revisited: Web Freedom vs Accountability; April 2020

     

    Information warfare and the future of media at the NYC Media Lab Summit '19 Innovation Panel: Media 2030

     

    Tech Open Air Berlin: Keynote Fireside Chat, July 2017

     

    Understanding the U.S. National Security & Intelligence Landscape, and What Lies Ahead; NYU Center for Global Affairs, September 2017

     

    Shades of Red and Blue Summit: "The Problem of Strangers", a bi-partisan panel on immigration, refugees and national security issues (full video)

     

    Understanding the U.S. National Security & Intelligence Landscape, and What Lies Ahead; NYU Center for Global Affairs, September 2017

     

    Shades of Red and Blue Summit: "The Problem of Strangers", a bi-partisan panel on immigration, refugees and national security issues (full video)

  • UPCOMING EVENTS

    UPCOMING EVENTS

    Come see Yaël speak at:

    Check back for upcoming events.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • contact me

    Speaking:

    Book Yaël to speak through the LAVIN Agency.

    Sample talks and topics:

    • "With Great Power Comes...No Responsibility?" Who is responsible for the real-world consequences of tech?
    • Trust in a Trustless World
    • Disruptive Technologies and Democracy: Can they co-exist?
    • Blindspot: Data Without Human Intelligence

    Photo by Katie Burwick

Copyright 2017

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