Simpson student Kathryn Hays was recently selected to present her research at the Council on Undergraduate Research in Washington DC, comparing the contrasting effects of disinformation on the most recent presidential campaigns in the United States and France. Hays tells KNIA News while working at the French Embassy on an internship, she attended a conference about Russian interference in elections, and the project grew from there. Hays said disinformation isn’t about helping one side or the other, it is about creating dissension.

“People think that weaponizing information is going to have one effect or have one agenda, to hurt either the left or the right. But weaponization of information has no agenda except to separate people. So the way this information was used to hurt America was they realized the greatest weakness was polarization. And so they thought they could put disbelief in our democratic processes and push people to be extreme in their ideologies they could hurt America.”

Hays was featured on a recent In Depth with Dr. Bob Leonard. Listen to the full interview below.
https://www.kniakrls.com/2020/05/27/in-depth-russian-disinformation-in-political-campaigns-knia-and-krls/