‘This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like’

Six years ago, award-winning journalist Carole Cadwalladr ‘walked into the lair of the tech gods’ at TED to highlight Facebook’s role in Brexit. A single phrase she uttered there led to years of legal threats against her. This April, she returned to dissect the full-scale ‘digital coup’ that has been unleashed in the wake of her warnings being ignored

It’s a coup. I know you probably don’t want to hear that. But we can’t fight it if we can’t see it. And we can’t see it if we don’t name it.

The Russian and American Presidents are now speaking the same words; they are telling the same lies. We are watching the collapse of the international order in real time, and this is just the start. Coups are like concrete. When they stop moving, they set. It is already later than we think.

Some of you in this room might know the people in this image on the right.

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