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Is Facebook a Threat to Democracy? A conversation about rights in the digital age
November 9, 2021 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Join Taylor Owen, one of Canada’s leading experts on digital media ethics, in conversation with The Walrus editor-in-chief Jessica Johnson.
Online platforms like Facebook, which collect and share huge amounts of information, are being accused of putting profit above democracy and the public good.
Can government regulation protect us and our children from online harm and misinformation – or is Big Tech ungovernable?
How can Canadians balance freedom of expression and protection from harm on social media?
Taylor Owen is the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications, the founding director of The Center for Media, Technology and Democracy, and an Associate Professor in the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University. He is the host of the Center of International Governance’s Big Tech podcast where he is also a Senior Fellow. His work focuses on the intersection of media, technology and public policy.
Jessica Johnson is editor-in-chief at The Walrus, Canada’s leading general interest magazine. A former editor at the Globe & Mail and National Post newspapers, she is an award-winning journalist who has contributed essays, features and criticism to a wide range of North American publications. She was the co-creator, with Maclean’s journalist Anne Kingston, of “#MeToo and the Media”, an inaugural course in the University of Toronto’s Book and Media Studies program.