Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020
Nina Jankowicz, an expert on Russian misinformation, says despite repeated warnings of Russian behavior in the 2020 election, Washington has largely shrugged it off.
The shadow of fake news and social media hoaxes has hung over American politics since the 2016 election, when a Kremlin influence campaign went to work in support of Donald Trump.
The years since have been filled with warnings that Russia would be back at it in 2020. As recently as this month, Facebook and Twitter warned of Russian disinformation aimed at propping up the president's reelection.
But the U.S. government's response has been to pass the responsiblity of combating the disinformation to social media companies, according to Nina Jankowicz, an expert on Russian disinformation.
"It's already too late for massive action on behalf of the government," Jankowicz told NPR in August. "It's up to each of us ahead of the election to be really vigilant about the information we're consuming."
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Nina Jankowicz, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, disinformation fellow; author of “How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict” (@wiczipedia)