Member of European Parliament, @alexandrageese.eurosky.social, discusses how social media algorithms set the political and popular agenda and censor speech.
Cambridge Disinformation Summit, 9 April 2026
youtu.be/gwh8kcI286Q
I was honored to give the virtual keynote for the Cambridge Disinformation Summit last week. Alan Jagolinzer of the Cambridge Judge Business School, who chaired the summit, said, "I see disinformation as preparing the landscape for corruption."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6yI...
Great catching up, thanks for coming!
Fantastic hosting the brilliant Michael Mann @michaelemann.bsky.social for the opening keynote of the Cambridge Disinformation Summit. He spoke about intersecting risks of disinfo for climate, health, & democracy.
Highly recommend his new book Science under Siege with @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social
The great Steve Lewandowsky @lewan.bsky.social presented cutting-edge new work at the Cambridge Disinformation Summit with @almogsi.bsky.social showing how alienating us vs them rhetoric predicts real-world violent outcomes across 145 political manifestos between 1796 & 2024.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
It was an absolute pleasure to host the Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk at the Cambridge Disinformation Summit. A powerful speech about the dangers of online disinformation and how it can translate to offline harm.
Fantastic leadership from one of the world's greatest cities. 👏
New paper: we propose a theory to help explain variation in democratic backsliding. We look at the case of Russia, Israel, & the US. We posit that collective memories about democracy influence models of collective action.
advances.in/psychology/1...
Led by the brill Neil Lavie-Driver @advances.in
New article! Why do some societies resist democratic backsliding while others remain indifferent or actively support it? Neil Lavie-Driver and @profsanderlinden.bsky.social extend the social identity model of collective action to explore the role of collective memory. advances.in/psychology/1...
Academics and independent journalists need significant funding to better understand, expose, and inform policy about narrative-led corruption. I hope the discussions in our meetings will help articulate the gravity of the risks we face and the commitment to and quality of work from this community. I hope that this, in turn, can inspire governments and others who value evidence-based policy, collaborative government, and democracy to properly fund this work, while they still have the ability to do so. As some experts will discuss in these meetings, information corruption and cognitive manipulation fuel existential threats. Our work should be considered important enough to fund as if it were part of fundamental societal or sovereign defence. Our work could potentially offer greater societal defence in this moment than some billion-dollar military hardware. In fact, some of our research could inform policy or actions that could reduce the need to deploy the military hardware we have already spent billions on. So, I think there is a high return on investment to properly fund our work.
From my opening speech at the Cambridge Disinformation Summit.
Governments need to fund research and policy around disinformation and malign cognitive influence as a core part of defence.
The ROI would be likely be greater than $billion military hardware.
"...This year, we decided to focus on studying the harms that are fueled by intentionally misleading narratives from actors who have financial, power, psycho-social, and/or physical incentives to exploit others. We will hear from experts, for example, about assessments of multi-generational systemic economic, climate, and humanitarian damage that stems from malign cognitive influence campaigns. This focus on harms is critically important because I see disinformation—which is an intentionally deceptive speech act—as often a preparatory act to engage in an intentional associated harms or exploitation act. In other words, I see disinformation as preparing the landscape for corruption. Across the globe and throughout history, we can see how disinformation campaigns—which I view as preparatory speech acts—groom vulnerable people for associated corruption acts like sextortion fraud scams, crypto rug pulls, catfishing, sexual slavery, terroristic violence, or expansionist warfare. ...I think we offer one of the few remaining anti-corruption guardrails at this moment in history, which is why we must continue our work, despite threats from very powerful and well-funded global actors who do not want us to expose or impede their corruption.
From my opening speech at the Cambridge Disinformation Summit.
Disinformation sets the stage for corruption.
We are excited to welcome Katherine Ryan tomorrow night, with @sageandjester.bsky.social, for the Cambridge Disinformation Summit.
She joins host Robin Clyfan for a sharp fireside chat. How does she read a room, build tension, and shift what people believe, all in 60 minutes?
Congratulations @profsanderlinden.bsky.social - winner of the @bpsofficial.bsky.social Presidents' award www.bps.org.uk/news/congrat...
Find lots from him in our archive, including a great conversation with @jonronson.bsky.social
www.bps.org.uk/search?term=...
Next up: Disinformation Summit in Cambridge UK, where I'll be talking (Wednesday morning) about my book #ScienceUnderSiege with @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social
Here in the UK for the Cambridge Disinformation Summit @jagolinzer.bsky.social @profsanderlinden.bsky.social
Some of my thoughts on the recent Meta/YT legal cases in the run up to the Cambridge Disinformation Summit next week.
"They don’t seem to learn, so I guess they’ll keep getting sued until the message lands.”
www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/they-ll...
Prebunking Against Climate #Misinformation: Systematic Review www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... by @profsanderlinden.bsky.social et al 🙏
"Inoculation with scientific consensus strengthens climate trust & policy support..."
"...effectively reduced susceptibility to climate misinformation"
Cool, cool, a federal judge just ruled that the Trump administration has the power to demand lists of Jews from colleges and universities. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/u...
Super honored to find out I was given the the BPS President's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge! It's an honor & a real testament to the whole Cambridge Lab, deep felt thank you to all who have supported us 🙏
Full statement 👇
www.bps.org.uk/news/congrat...
It was a pleasure featuring in this excellent Sky News episode on the social media ban debate. Quick summary;
"They all believed that social media companies should be forced to change their platforms rather than young people being forced to come off them."
news.sky.com/story/countl...
Yes’
Los Angeles trial verdict also just in: Meta and Google found liable for negligence and designing addictive social media features www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Meta ordered to pay 375 million after being found liable by a jury in New Mexico in one of the child exploitation cases for misleading consumers about the safety of their platforms.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
@profsanderlinden.bsky.social - Professor of Social Psychology at @cam.ac.uk - spoke to us about media literacy in schools 👇
His full interview with us: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcJ...
#osint #debunking
Very cool to see the Japanese cover of Foolproof, which has just been released in Japan! It's one of my favorite covers. Thanks so much to Prof Sasahara for doing the excellent translation and including a new foreword.
www.msz.co.jp/book/detail/...
Pleasure contributing to this BBC deep dive on lying 👇
"Empirically, people are bad at spotting deception, says Prof Sander van der Linden. If you look at meta-analyses, people do marginally better than chance. That’s pretty bad. We’re basically just guessing.” www.sciencefocus.com/science/trul...
Ps thanks for reading the book!
Yes in the book I describe the idea that the big lie doesn’t just happen you have to groom the population over time with more palatable untruths in order to foster congenial worldviews thats why prebunking in schools from an early age is crucial I think before ideological views settle.
Disinformation remains in the top risks for the WEF Global Risks Report 2026, it's a risk that amplifies all other risks, incl war. Important post from @jagolinzer.bsky.social about how cognitive manipulation is destabilizing democracies and how to build resilience 👇
www.weforum.org/stories/2026...
