Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt On Fake News, Russia, And “Information Warfare”
“One of the things I did not understand,” says Schmidt, “was that these systems can be used to manipulate public opinion in ways that are quite inconsistent with what we think of as democracy.”
Ever since the 2016 presidential election, Alphabet, the tech giant that owns Google, has been under intense scrutiny to acknowledge its role in trafficking the Russia-backed disinformation campaign that potentially helped shape the outcome. In some of the most unequivocal comments yet, the company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, recently acknowledged to Fast Company that the search giant didn’t do enough to safeguard its services against Russian manipulation.
“We did not understand the extent to which governments–essentially what the Russians did–would use hacking to control the information space. It was not something we anticipated strongly enough,” Schmidt said. “I worry that the Russians in 2020 will have a lot more powerful tools.”
Schmidt’s comments, from an August 30 interview published as part of a new Fast Company feature about how Alphabet is grappling with digital threats such as fake news and…
