On January 16 2019, Oxford University's Centre for Technology and Global Affairs hosted Edward Lucas to speak on the potential threats to Western democracies amid the rapid evolution and emergence of new technologies. Edward Lucas is a writer and consultant specializing in European and transatlantic security. His expertise also includes energy, cyber-security, espionage, information warfare, and Russian foreign and security policy.
Dominant social media channels, he argues, are nearly impossible to be regulated and are open to manipulation. By providing a vast array of interactions between technology and politics as well as social interactions, Lucas engaged the audience to think about the disruption that these interactions can bring to our daily lives through creating new vulnerabilities. His examples were as recent and as proximate as they can be, demonstrating that these issues are no longer novel nor distant. He also encouraged a reassessment of the way societies think about online identity, anonymity, and information assurance.
