Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on October 20th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminar with Matt Deverna.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar. The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements.

About the Seminar:

People increasingly turn to AI systems to make sense of the news and to answer questions about their health. What happens when the answers we get about politics and our own health come from AI? In this talk, I will present two projects on AI and political fact-checking. The first is an experiment testing how AI-generated fact-checks of political news headlines affect people's ability to tell true headlines from false ones. The second is an audit of how well 15 large language models fact-check 6,000 political claims rated by PolitiFact. I will also share ongoing work examining how six AI systems (Google's AI Overviews, Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Perplexity) respond to general health questions. Together, these studies shed light on when AI helps people separate fact from fiction, where it falls short, and what this means for the growing number of people who rely on it.
 

About the Speaker:

Matt DeVerna is a computational social scientist studying the societal impacts of artificial intelligence, with a focus on how people find information online to form beliefs and make decisions. His research spans human-centered and system-level analysis, pairing large-scale audits of AI systems, such as language models and search engines, with experiments and observational analysis of social media. This work centers on high-stakes domains like news, politics, and public health, where these systems can strengthen or erode both public understanding and public institutions. It aims to help researchers, platforms, and policymakers ensure AI makes our digital spaces more trustworthy and resilient. Matt is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University’s Tech Impact and Policy Center. He holds a Ph.D. in Informatics from Indiana University and an M.A. in Psychology from New York University.

In this seminar, we will hear from Alice Siu, Associate Director of Stanford's Deliberative Democracy Lab, about their recently completed project: a 2026 "Industry-wide Forum" inviting public input for the future of AI agents through public deliberation.

​Read the paper here: https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/people-shaping-ai-groundbreaking-industry-wide-forum-invites-public-input-future-ai-agents

​In this seminar, Alice will share their method of Deliberative Polling using the AI-assisted Stanford Online Deliberation Platform developed by Stanford's Crowdsourced Democracy Team. "This method involves providing balanced information to participants, facilitated expert Q&A sessions, and small-group discussions."

​She will also share how the project managed to organize and mobilize the large company participants, including Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, PayPal, DoorDash, and Cohere. She will also cover some of the regional results from both the US national and India national projects... and probably so much more. We're looking forward to hosting Alice and learning from this exciting work!

​The seminar is intended for researchers and practitioners in online governance, broadly defined. We welcome guests and curious members of the public. Note that the discussion is moderated.

This event is hosted by Metagov, a nonprofit research-to-infrastructure laboratory advancing community sovereignty, network governance, and statecraft in the age of AI.

After the Arab Spring, Tunisia emerged as the one success story to transition to democracy, winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for its focus on inclusion and power-sharing. How, then, did its democracy collapse in 2021?

Drawing on unique interviews with senior Tunisian officials, alongside three nationally representative surveys of the population, The Rise and Fall of Tunisian Democracy points to an overemphasis on compromise, consensus, and power-sharing. Although power-sharing institutions can be useful at the start of a transition, the book finds that extending them beyond that point can lead democracy to unravel by frustrating voters and spurring the rise of populists and extremists. The book takes an in-depth look at Tunisia's transition and then explores how far the theory travels through a quantitative analysis of all democratic transitions between 1942–2020. Overall, the book reveals the dark side of power-sharing, broadening our understanding of the causes of populism, polarization, and democratic breakdown.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sharan Grewal (PhD, Princeton 2018) is an Associate Professor of Government at American University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. His research examines revolutions and democratic transitions, particularly in the Arab world. His first book, Soldiers of Democracy? Military Legacies and the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2023), explores why militaries support or thwart democratic transitions. It received APSA’s Best Book in MENA Politics Award and the Robert Jervis Best International Security Book Award. His second book, The Rise and Fall of Tunisian Democracy: Populism, Polarization, and the Perils of Power-Sharing, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in October 2026. His work has also been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and British Journal of Political Science, among other journals. His research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Defense Security Cooperation University.

How has Russia sustained its confrontation with the West since 2022, and at what cost? In her new book, Hanna Notte argues the Kremlin is waging a war not only on Ukraine but over the global order itself.

Notte traces how Russia adapted after the invasion. It worked around sanctions, built new partnerships, cultivated support across the Global South and tried to deepen divisions within Western democracies. Her account combines policy analysis with field reporting from more than a dozen countries and interviews with officials, facilitators and ordinary people drawn into Russia's agenda.

The book also examines the domestic consequences. Notte finds that Putin's focus on confronting the West has distorted Russia's economy and moved the country from a tacit dictatorship toward a full one. She suggests Putin may outlast the West, but has gambled Russia's future in the process.

Satre Family Senior Fellow and Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, Kathryn Stoner will moderate the discussion, which will cover Russian statecraft, the durability of autocratic regimes under pressure and what Russia's strategy means for the U.S., Europe and the Global South. Audience Q&A will follow.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Hanna Notte is the Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She is also a senior associate (non-resident) with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and with the Kennan Institute. Notte's expertise is in Russia's foreign and security policy. She holds a doctorate and Master's degree in international relations from Oxford University and a BA in social and political sciences from Cambridge University. During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting researcher with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Carnegie Moscow Center. Based in Berlin, she regularly writes for outlets such as the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, and ZEIT, among others.

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on October 27th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminar with Susan Sawyer

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

In December 2025, the Australian Government implemented novel legislation aimed at restricting under 16-year-olds from accessing social media. This presentation will 1) review the prevalence of poor mental health in Australian adolescents; 2) present longitudinal data on the causal links between frequent social media use and poor mental health; and 3) provide insights into what has (and what has not) changed as a result of Australia's social media legislation.

About the Speaker:

Professor Susan M Sawyer AM MBBS MD FRACP FAAHMS holds the Geoff and Helen Handbury Chair of Adolescent Health at The University of Melbourne and is director of the Centre for Adolescent Health, a WHO collaborating centre for adolescent health at the Royal Children’s Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Widely published (>450 peer review publications, >55 book chapters, >66,500 citations, H-index 106), her research, education and advocacy efforts have advanced the field of adolescent health in Australia, the Asia Pacific region, and globally. Susan’s leadership shaped two series on Adolescent Health for The Lancet (2007, 2012), as well as two Lancet Commissions on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing (2016, 2025) - she is currently co-leading a Lancet Commission on the health of China’s adolescents. She was president of the International Association for Adolescent Health (president, 2017-21) and chaired the International Pediatric Association’s Specialist Advisory Group for Adolescent Medicine (2021-23). She is a member of the Australian eSafety Commission’s Academic Evaluation Committee that is overseeing the evaluation of Australia’s novel social media legislation. She leads a longitudinal cohort known as CATS, the Child to Adult transition Study, that has annually collected information on 1200 nine-year-olds for the past 15 years, including data on social media and mental health.

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on November 17th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminar with Robin Nabi.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

Extensive attention has been paid to the potential harms of media consumption generally, and social media use in particular, with relatively little consideration given to the potential psychological benefits of media use. This talk will address why this bias exists and its potential for unintended negative consequences. Evidence of how self-selected and prescribed digital media content can support desirable outcomes, including reduced stress and procrastination, increased goal motivation and pursuit, and increased empathy and relational satisfaction, will be shared to highlight the need for better understanding of how to empower users to make media choices that can support their psychological well-being.

About the Speaker:

Robin L. Nabi is a Professor of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. With degrees from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, she has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters investigating the effects of media use on emotional experiences, decision-making, and well-being. She is the co-editor of two volumes: The SAGE Handbook of Media Processes and Effects and Emotions in the Digital World (Oxford University Press). She is a Fellow of the International Communication Association, and her research has been featured in numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, NPR, CBC/Radio-Canada, and the Harvard Business Review.

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on October 13th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminar with Anthony Chen.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

Policy on young people and technology has been gaining momentum, on the assumption that what adolescents do online is the problem to be removed. This talk starts from the opposite premise: young people turn to technology to meet the developmental needs that define adolescence, their identity, relationships, and mental health. Drawing on existing and ongoing empirical work, Anthony Chen argues that technology use is better read as information about what young people need than as the reason they are struggling. These findings may change what schools, families, and regulators think they should do as young people navigate the technology world.

About the Speaker:

Anthony Chen is a postdoctoral scholar at the Tech Impact and Policy Center. His research examines how social media and emerging technologies shape identity, relationships, and well-being, with a particular focus on adolescents and young adults. His work has been supported by Hopelab, the Jacobs Foundation, and the National Communication Association, and has appeared in leading communication and interdisciplinary journals. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Communication Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining Stanford, he was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Irvine.

Join the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law for a conversation with Maria Kuznetsova and Dan Storyev, Russian journalists in exile and co-authors of How to Survive Authoritarianism: A Russian's Phrasebook for Everyday Life in America (Liveright, 2026). The book argues that Americans confronting a rising tide of authoritarianism don't need to invent a vocabulary for it: Russians already built one over generations of contending with illiberal rule. Kuznetsova and Storyev compile roughly 100 Russian words and phrases, from "power vertical," used to describe hypercentralized governance, to "mnogohodovochka," a term that mocks misguided state initiatives, tracing how this vernacular of double-speak helped ordinary citizens "make sense of how illiberalism takes shape." The discussion will bring that framework to the American context, examining the mechanics of authoritarian consolidation and the strategies available for resisting it, and drawing comparisons between the Russian experience and current U.S. politics. Satre Family Senior Fellow & Mosbacher Director Kathryn Stoner will be moderating the discussion.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Maria Kuznetsova is a human rights expert from Russia who tackles political prosecution and anti-war repressions. She has expertise in developing international advocacy campaigns and engaging in strategic communication with journalists and public figures on human rights issues, especially in the context of Russian war against Ukraine. Kuznetsova received a master of public policy from Harvard Kennedy School and is based in San Francisco.

Dan Storyev grew up between Russia and the US. An Oxford graduate, he has been working as a journalist and researcher for years, specialising on writing about the former Soviet space for English-language outlets. His writing appeared in the Financial Times, New York Times and Foreign Policy amongst others. Dan covers human rights and conflicts and has reported from hotspots all over the world, including Ukraine and Myanmar. Dan writes the English newsletter at OVD-Info, a leading Russian human rights watchdog, which Dan also represented at conferences, radio, TV and more. Dan had worked as a lecturer and tutor for a decade — his diverse experience includes guest lectures at Oxford, Ghent and KCL.