Kate Starbird, Lecture & Discussion: "Muddied Waters: Online Disinformation During Crisis Events"

Kate Starbird, assistant professor at University of Washington and expert on informatics, will share how alternative narratives of crisis information spread, creating confusion and clouding judgment.

9/11 was an inside job. Sandy Hook was a hoax. The survivors of the recent Florida school shooting are actually hired actors.

We've all heard these conspiracy theories. College Park Scholars now invites you to join special guest Kate Starbird for a lively--and timely--discussion on how such theories spread after a crisis. This promises to be a lively discussion that will also raise some challenging questions about how systems can be designed to be less vulnerable to disinformation.

Read about Professor Starbird’s current research here: https://medium.com/hci-design-at-uw/information-wars-a-window-into-the-alternative-media-ecosystem-a1347f32fd8f.

This event is part of programming related to “Going Viral,” the College Park Scholars annual theme for 2017-18. For information and other events, please go to https://scholars.umd.edu/going-viral-scholars-theme-2017-18.