On Wednesday, February 16th, 2022 David
L. Sloss joined us to lead a virtual seminar entitled Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies
from Information Warfare, based on his book of the same name. Mr. Sloss was introduced by Dean Jens Ohlin.
About the seminar:
When Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram were first
introduced to the public, their mission was simple: they were designed to help
people become more connected to each other. Social media became a thriving digital
space by giving its users the freedom to share whatever they wanted with their
friends and followers. Unfortunately, these same digital tools are also easy to
manipulate. As exemplified by Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election, authoritarian states can exploit social media to
interfere with democratic governance in open societies.
Tyrants on Twitter is the first detailed analysis of how
Chinese and Russian agents weaponize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube
to subvert the liberal international order. In addition to examining the 2016
U.S. election, David L. Sloss explores Russia's use of foreign influence
operations to threaten democracies in Europe, as well as China's use of social
media and other digital tools to meddle in Western democracies and buttress
autocratic rulers around the world.
Sloss calls for cooperation among democratic governments to
create a new transnational system for regulating social media to protect
Western democracies from information warfare. Drawing on his professional
experience as an arms control negotiator, he outlines a novel system of
transnational governance that Western democracies can enforce by harmonizing
their domestic regulations. And drawing on his academic expertise in
constitutional law, he explains why that system—if implemented by legislation
in the United States—would be constitutionally defensible, despite likely First
Amendment objections. This book is essential reading in a time when
disinformation campaigns threaten to undermine democracy.
About David L.
Sloss:
David L. Sloss is the John A. and Elizabeth H. Sutro
Professor of Law at Santa Clara University. He is the author of The Death of
Treaty Supremacy: An Invisible Constitutional Change (Oxford Univ. Press,
2016) and Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information
Warfare (Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming 2022). He is the co-editor of International
Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge Univ.
Press, 2011) and sole editor of The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty
Enforcement: A Comparative Study (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009). He has also
published several dozen book chapters and law review articles. His book on the
death of treaty supremacy and his edited volume on international law in the
U.S. Supreme Court both won prestigious book awards from the American Society
of International Law. Professor Sloss is a member of the American Law Institute
and a Counsellor to the American Society of International Law. His scholarship
is informed by extensive government experience. Before entering academia, he
spent nine years in the federal government, where he worked on U.S.-Soviet arms
control negotiations and nuclear proliferation issues.
About Dean Jens
Ohlin:
Jens Ohlin became
the Allan R. Tessler Dean on July 1, 2021. He previously served as Interim Dean
(January-June 2021), Vice Dean (2017-2020), Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
(2015-2017), and Director of Faculty Research (2013-2015).
His scholarly work stands at the intersection of four related
fields: criminal law, criminal procedure, public international law, and the
laws of war. Trained as both a lawyer and a philosopher, his research has
tackled questions as diverse as criminal conspiracy and the punishment of
collective criminal action, the philosophical foundations of international law,
and the role of new technologies in warfare, including cyberwar, remotely
piloted drones, and autonomous weapons.