The Technology, Culture and Power Speaker Series is a monthly gathering that explores critical insights on the intersections of technology and society. Our monthly gatherings feature leading experts and scholars examining the interactions of digital technologies, culture, and inequality. Join the TCP mailing list here. 

Please join Stanford PACS and the Department of Communication on February 5, 2026 for a lecture and Q&A with Daniel Kreiss. Kreiss is the Edgar Thomas Cato Distinguished Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media and Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kreiss is also faculty director, a principal researcher, and co-founder of the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, a global leader in disinformation research. Kreiss is the author or co-author of five books and the co-editor of Media and January 6th (Oxford University Press, 2024). Kreiss’s last volume, a co-written textbook entitled Platforms, Power, and Politics: An Introduction to Political Communication in the Digital Age (Polity, 2024), has been translated into multiple languages and adopted in numerous courses in the U.S. and Europe. Kreiss co-edits the Oxford University Press book series Journalism and Political Communication Unbound and is an associate editor of the field-leading Political Communication journal. At the Hussman School, Kreiss is the director of the undergraduate Political Communication Program. Kreiss is an affiliated fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and received a Ph.D. in Communication from Stanford University.

Resilient Platform Democracy: Towards Pro-Democratic Social Media Policies

Platforms fail democracy. They fail in countries with comparatively stable governments and free and fair elections. They fail in states where leaders try to hold onto power even when they are voted out. As democratic backsliding takes root around the world, I argue that technology companies must serve as democratic gatekeepers and adopt democracy-worthy platform policies. They can do so by learning the lessons of 1930s era liberal democratic struggles against fascism, as anti-democratic movements across Europe used elections to gain power and subsequently dismantle democratic norms and institutions. The core idea is that democratic states can and should “fight fire with fire” (Lowenstein, 1937) and preemptively restrict the rights of individuals and parties who threaten their very existence. I outline how platforms should understand democratic threats and prevent the manipulation of their workings by antidemocratic forces. I show how autocrats and autocratizing forces in countries ranging from Brazil, Hungary, India, and Turkey to the United States weaponize expression and social media to undermine or rollback elections and democratic accountability. I argue that this happens according to a well-established playbook that we have seen time and again. Leaders in these countries, rather consistently and routinely, delegitimize electoral processes and encourage or incite political violence. They conduct disinformation campaigns that spread harmful conspiracy theories and silence and harass the political opposition. They justify power grabs through strongman appeals to safety and security. And, these autocrats mobilize dominant groups through ‘us vs. them’ rhetoric and the stoking of fear against racial, ethnic, religious, or other minority group ‘others.’  As this talk shows, this is a well-established playbook. That very consistency means that guardians of democracy – including platforms – can and must effectively counter these campaigns. To do so, I outline eight democracy worthy policies platforms should adopt that elevate public over individual rights, put people over politicians, account for power, and draw a red line around election disinformation.