Too Much (dis)Information

#Episode 22 How to Counter Online Hatred Erik Swain is the CEO & Co-Founder of Respondology, a social media tool aimed at removing hateful, racist, and brand-damaging comments. He is very well-versed in the evolution of the online space, having spent almost 10 years at AOL.  Since then, he has built, scaled, and sold two successful media and ad tech companies. Seeing the damage created by anon...

#Episode 21 Disinformation as a Tool of Psychological Manipulation Diane Benscoter is the founder of Antidote, an organization advocating for psychological manipulation to be recognized as a public health concern. She founded the NGO drawing from her own experiences as a member of a cult - in the 1970s, Diane spent five years as a member of the religious cult the "Moonies."  Since then,...

#Episode 20 How are Latinos Being Exposed to Disinformation Roberta Braga is the director for counter-disinformation strategies at Equis, a set of organizations working to better understand the Latino electorate within the United States.  Originally from Brazil, her impressive CV includes stints at the Atlantic Council, Baker McKenzie, and the National Endowment for Democracy. Her team has led ext...

#Episode 19 In this podcast, we talk about Deceptive Imagery Persuasion (DIP), a new term coined by Ryan McBeth.  Ryan is the Neil DeGrasse Tyson of the OSINT Intelligence World.  His educational videos about software, the military, and open-source intelligence are so popular that his YouTube channel has over three-quarters of a million subscribers who have collectively watched his videos nearly 4...

#Episode 18 Cyber Insurance in the Age of Disinformation Jason is the CISO at Corvus Insurance, a company providing cyber insurance solutions.  But you may recognize him as the face of Teach Me Cyber, a YouTube channel where Jason helpfully breaks down cyber security ideas and trends in easy-to-understand and bite-size videos. His video about DDoS attacks is my personal favorite. He also updates h...

#Episode 17 Deplatforming Hate Groups Dr. Megan Squire is the Deputy Director for Data Analytics and OSINT at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Their work includes monitoring hate groups and other extremists and then exposing their activities to law enforcement agencies, the media, and the public. Earlier...

#Episode 16 The Challenges of Misinformation for Law Enforcement Chata is the Public Affairs Director at the City of Atlanta Police Department. With a background in broadcast journalism at ABC, CNN, amongst others, she manages communications and crises related to policing in Atlanta.  In her role, Chata regularly comes across dis and misinformation in the very fast-paced and high-stakes environmen...

#Episode 15 After a short summer break, we are back! The Dark Side of Social Media Algorithms David Meerman Scott is an expert in social media and marketing and the author of 12 books, including the Wall Street Journal bestseller Fanocracy. An advisor and consultant to tech companies, he teaches audiences about the opportunities and dangers of social media.  A commenter on the online space for nea...

#Episode 14 How to Conduct an Influence Operations Investigation Ari Ben Am is an Open Source Investigator. Previously an analyst at Cobwebs and Active Fence, he is the founder and CEO of Glowstick, which supports organizations and their intelligence teams with the processes and tools to conduct better analysis using OSINT and WEBINT techniques.  The areas that interest him most include China, ext...

#Episode 13 Benyamin Cohen This week, we are doing something a little bit different. Our topic will be Albert Einstein! And we have Albert Einstein on the show…well, the voice for Albert Einstein as Benyamin Cohen, our guest, is the official manager of Einstein’s social media accounts which collectively have more than 20 million followers. He recently penned a New York Times opinion piece titled ‘...

#Episode 12 Shauna Dillavou Shauna is the CEO and founder of Brightlines, an anti-doxxing service designed to protect people running for office. She also leads Security Positive, a digital security consulting firm for the often-overlooked security needs of activists. Shauna is a former intelligence analyst with the US government, who spent the last decade protecting democracy activists from discov...

#Episode 11 Andrew Kirsch Today, Andrew is a consultant on issues of physical, cyber, and National Security. But earlier in his career, he spent many years at the Canadian Security Intelligence Services as an intelligence officer. He was also a Security Officer enhancing the physical, information, and network security across the Ontario Public Service. He sits on the Ontario Expert Panel on Cyber...

#Episode 10 Professor Alan Jagolinzer Auditing Disinformation: Can We Use Accounting Principles to Fight Fake News? Professor Alan Jagolinzer is one of the emerging leading figures in the fight against disinformation. He is organizing the Cambridge Disinformation Summit taking place in late July 2023 at the University of Cambridge.  But it's his journey to this point that is particularly inter...

#Episode 9 Joe Gray Slithering Schemes: A New Social Media Bait and Switch Phenomenon In this episode, we introduce a new identity fraud tactic conducted by malicious actors on social media.  There are few people more qualified to talk about this topic than Joe Gray.  Joe, a veteran of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force, is the Founder of The OSINTion, which provides online and in-person training about...

#Episode 8 Sonia Cook-Broen The Evolution of Communities Sonia Cook-Broen is the founder of The Tech Margin, which aims to bring more women and underrepresented people into tech jobs. She is also a CTO via AcornOak, a fractional executive leadership service.  She is a regular speaker on the tech scene and has held senior developer positions at companies, including Salesforce and the threat intelli...

#Episode 7 Yasmin Schlegel What is OSINT? Yasmin is a Threat Intelligence and Cyber Risk expert who is also currently a PhD Cyberpsychology Candidate.  Now at Capgemini Engineering and previously at Dataminr, she has extensive experience working for the US government across the NSA, the US Army as a Cyber Intelligence Threat Analyst, and also the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Topics dis...

#Episode 6 Daria Azariev-North Are Elections Under Threat? Daria is the Program Manager at The International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Her work is focused on building democratic institutions and civil society to ensure election integrity and countering foreign influence in democratic processes. A European-American from Chicago, now based in DC, she’s also spent time at the Atlantic Council...

#Episode 5 Dr. Welton Chang New and Alternative Social Media Sites Dr. Welton Chang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pyrra Technologies, which tracks threats across alt-social sites. Earlier in his career, he served as an intel officer with the US Army, and then as an analyst with the US Department of Defense, serving in Iraq, where he was assigned to train the Iraqi National Intelligence Cell. Welton...

#Episode 4 Luigi Lenguito Disinformation Goes Corporate: The Growing Threat to Companies from Public-Sector Tactics A native of Naples, Italy, but now residing in France, Luigi is the founder of Bfore.ai, a Predictive Cybersecurity company. I have met with him in New York and Tel Aviv, so he gets around! Previously a VP of EMEA at Quest Software, where he led a team of 300, Luigi spent 17 years at...

#Episode 3 Cyber Resilience: Tomorrow’s Threats Today Derrick Butts Derrick is a cyber-resilience strategist who spent nearly 8 years as the Chief Information and Cybersecurity Officer of Truth Initiative. He has also held security roles at both the US Navy and Siemens.  Nowadays can be found as the CEO & Founder of Continuums Strategies, a cyber business transformation adviser helping compani...

Episode #2 AI & Machine Learning - Opportunities or Threats to OSINT? Matt is a Hacker by nature who spent 21 years at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security he trained thousands of people across the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, on topics including OSINT and cyber security. Matt is the Principal Instructor for the Open-Source Intelligence (OS...

Episode #1 The link between local journalism and disinformation Theodora Skeadas recently left Twitter’s public policy team. Earlier in her career, she worked at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she worked closely with defense institutions. More recently, Theodora has been consulting for civil society organizations working toward combatting disinformation. Topics covered: Her experience combatting disin...

Hi, I'm Rafi Mendelsohn, the host of Too Much (dis)Information, the podcast that explores everything related to disinformation and online networks. To help us make sense of the global town square that is social media, in every episode, our host speaks to a fresh voice to uncover the good, bad, and fake online. This podcast believes that we are at a pivotal moment in the fight against disinform...