Our ‘Arbiters of Truth’ Podcast Series Has Its Own Feed!

In October 2019, Lawfare introduced a podcast miniseries examining the many controversies roiling the information ecosystem—from debates over disinformation and misinformation, to discussions over how much responsibility platforms like Facebook should take in governing what appears on their services, to investigations into efforts by governments around the world to turn the tools of online conversations to their advantage. We called it “Arbiters of Truth,” after Facebook—now Meta—CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s famous comment after the 2016 election that his company did not “want to be arbiters of truth ourselves.” The idea, proposed by my co-host Evelyn Douek, was that we would run the series on the Lawfare Podcast feed through the November 2020 presidential election, an event that seemed poised to serve as the apotheosis of all debates about falsehoods and lies on- and offline. 

But, of course, these debates didn’t end with the election. And neither did Arbiters of Truth. Somehow, we just never ran out of things to talk about—and we don’t expect to any time soon. 

So consider this a formal announcement that we’re planning to continue the podcast—which can no longer be reasonably described as a miniseries—as a regular part of the Lawfare Podcast, broadcast on Thursdays. And for those of you who just can’t get enough, Arbiters of Truth will also be available on its own separate podcast feed, also updated on Thursdays and available wherever you get your podcasts. You can find the showpage on Lawfare as always.