Events Calendar

On Tuesday, April 18, the Strauss Center welcomes Jessica Brandt, Policy Director for the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at Brookings, for a conversation on “Winning the Web: How Beijing Exploits Search Results to Shape Views of Xinjiang and COVID-19.” This talk will be held virtually, via Zoom, as part of the Strauss Center’s Brumley Speaker Series.

In her talk, Brandt will discuss her article by the same title, written in collaboration with Bret Schafer, Elen Aghekyan, Valerie Wirtschafter, and Adya Danaditya. For their research, Brandt and her team tracked how China has exploited search engine results on Xinjiang and COVID-19, two subjects that are geopolitically salient to Beijing: Xinjiang, because the Chinese government seeks to push back on condemnation of its rights record, and COVID-19, because it seeks to deflect criticism for its early mishandling of the pandemic. In both cases, Beijing is quite focused on positioning itself as a responsible global leader and softening perceptions to the contrary.

Her discussion will touch on their findings, policy recommendations for a variety of stakeholders, and the role of non-government actors in pushing back on misinformation within search engines, exploited by Beijing. Through taking the recommended steps, companies, content creators, and authoritative outlets can ensure that Beijing is not able to dominate search results for terms related to its geopolitical interests, and that users have the information they need to contextualize the propaganda they encounter.

For more information about this event, contact Brittany Horton at brittany.horton@austin.utexas.edu.