Thursday, January 22 & Friday, January 23, 2026
Northwestern University's Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and Center for Communication & Public Policy invite you to Global Disinformation in a Post-Moderation World, a two-day symposium that is part of the Roberta Buffett Institute's 2025–26 event series on Brave New Futures. This symposium is hosted in partnership with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Kyiv-Mohyla Foundation of America, and the Polsky Foundation.
The global information environment is undergoing a significant transformation, as major social media platforms and government institutions retreat from their active roles in combating disinformation. Platforms such as Meta, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok are scaling back centralized moderation and professional fact-checking efforts, even defunding global fact-checking organizations, and increasingly shifting the responsibility for addressing disinformation onto everyday users. At the same time, the US government has shuttered key programs, such as the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, withdrawn funding from regional and independent media outlets that counter propaganda and disinformation, and discontinued support for academic research in this area, signaling a broader institutional disengagement.
These shifts mark the emergence of a “post-moderation” era—one in which individuals and communities must take greater responsibility for identifying, interpreting, and responding to disinformation without the robust gatekeeping of the past. This symposium convenes global experts and practitioners from industry, public policy, academia, and civil society to address four urgent priorities for this new era: sustaining trust and credibility in information flows; strengthening accountability for platforms, governments, and users alike; advancing innovative tools and strategies to counter disinformation; and forging multi-sector collaboration to build resilient information ecosystems worldwide.
Register
Register for Day 1 In Person or Online
In Person Registration | Day 2: Friday, Jan. 23
Roberta Buffett Institute, 720 University Place, EvanstonOnline Registration | Day 2: Friday, Jan. 23
Online via ZoomSchedule of Events
Thursday, January 22
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, One Pru Plaza, 130 E Randolph St, Suite 1650, Chicago, IL
5:15 – 6:45 PM | Opening Plenary: Global Disinformation in a Post-Moderation World
5:15 – 5:30 PM | Opening Remarks
- Leslie Vinjamuri, President and CEO, Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
- Deborah Cohen, Richard W. Leopold Professor of History and Director of Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
- Erik C. Nisbet, Owen L. Coon Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and Director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy
5:30 – 6:45 PM | Opening Plenary: Global Disinformation in a Post-Moderation World
- Ellen McCarthy, Founder and CEO, Trust in Media Cooperative and former US Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence & Research
- James Warren, Executive Editor, NewsGuard
- Suzanne Nossel, Lester Crown Nonresident Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy & International Order, Chicago Council on Global Affairs
- Moderator: Leslie Vinjamuri, President and CEO, Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Friday, January 23
Location: Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, 720 University Place, Second Floor (Buffett Reading Room), Evanston, IL
8:15 – 8:45 AM | Registration & Coffee
8:45 – 9:00 AM | Opening Remarks
- Deborah Cohen, Richard W. Leopold Professor of History and Director of Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
- Erik C. Nisbet, Owen L. Coon Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and Director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy, School of Communication
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM | Innovating Resilience to Disinformation
This panel brings together leading voices from psychological science, industry, and fact-checking to explore cutting-edge strategies and innovation for strengthening societies’ resilience against evolving disinformation threats.
- Gordon Pennycook, Associate Professor of Psychology and Dorothy & Ariz Mehta Faculty Leadership Fellow, Cornell University
- Andrew Pel, Head of Campaigns, Moonshot
- Laura Zommer, Co-Founder and CEO, Factchequeado; Founder, LatamChequea
- Moderator: Erik Nisbet, Owen L. Coon Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication, Director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy, School of Communication, Northwestern University
10:30 AM – 10:45 AM | Coffee Break
10:45 AM – 12:15 PM | Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for Countering Disinformation
This panel convenes leaders representing the global tech industry, journalism, and policy to explore how multi-stakeholder collaboration can collectively address the challenges of disinformation.
- Angie Drobnic Holan, Director of the International Fact-Checking Network, Poynter Institute
- Erin Saltman, Senior Director, Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT)
- David Bray, Distinguished Chair of the Accelerator, Stimson Center; Principal/CEO, LDA Ventures, Inc.
- Moderator: Nicholas Diakopulos, Professor and Director of the Computational Journalism Lab, School of Communication, Northwestern University
12:15 PM – 1:15 PM | Lunch Break
Boxed lunches will be provided.
1:15 PM – 2:45 PM | Countering State-Sponsored Disinformation and Ensuring Trustworthy Information Spaces
This panel brings together leaders of populations targeted by state-sponsored disinformation and U.S. foreign policy to discuss approaches to countering such campaigns and to ensure trustworthy information spaces.
- Ellen McCarthy, Chairwoman and CEO, Trust in Media Cooperative; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence & Research
- Shih-Hung Lo, Professor, National Chung Cheng University; Chairperson, Taiwan FactCheck Center
- Viktoriia Romaniuk, Deputy Chief Editor, StopFake; Director, Mohyla School of Journalism at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
- Moderator: Olga Kamenchuk, Associate Professor of Instruction and Faculty Affiliate, Center for Communication & Public Policy, School of Communication
2:45 PM – 3:00 PM | Coffee Break
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM | Ensuring Accountability for Disinformation
This panel convenes experts in advocacy, research, and industry to discuss mechanisms for ensuring accountability of platforms, publishers, and users.
- Imran Ahmed, CEO, Center for Countering Digital Hate
- Emily Vraga, Don & Carole Larson Professor in Health Communication, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota
- James Warren, Executive Editor, NewsGuard
- Moderator: Priyanka Motaparthy, Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Center for International Human Rights, Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University
4:30 – 4:40 PM | Concluding Remarks
4:50 PM – 6:00 PM | Reception
Speakers & Moderators
Imran Ahmed
Imran Ahmed is the founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). As a globally recognized expert on the social and economic dynamics of online platforms, he shines light on how they erode mental health, trust, and democracy. A frequent media and documentary contributor, Imran advocates for transparency and accountability to help make online platforms safer for everyone, especially children. Imran advises policymakers across the US, UK, Europe, and Canada on countering digital harm. Among his awards and recognition, Imran received the Elevate Prize in 2025, which recognizes best-in-class social impact leaders driving transformative change worldwide.
David A. Bray
David A. Bray, PhD, is a Distinguished Fellow and Chair of the Accelerator with the Loomis Innovation Council at the non-partisan Henry L. Stimson Center. He also is CEO and Principal at LeadDoAdapt Ventures and has served in a variety of leadership roles in turbulent environments, including bioterrorism preparedness and response from 2000–2005. Bray previously was the Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, provided non-partisan leadership as a federal agency Senior Executive, worked with the US Navy and Marines on improving organizational adaptability, and aided US Special Operation Command’s J5 Directorate on the challenges of countering disinformation online. He has received both the Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award and the National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal.
Nicholas Diakopoulos
Nicholas Diakopoulos, PhD, is a Professor in Communication Studies and Computer Science (by courtesy) at Northwestern University where he is Director of the Computational Journalism Lab. His research is broadly oriented around topics related to Computational Journalism with active research projects on AI in news production and distribution. He is the author of the award-winning book Automating the News: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Media from Harvard University Press and is founder and editor of Generative AI in the Newsroom. He also pursues research in the area of AI, ethics, & society with projects related to algorithmic accountability, transparency, and impact assessment. He received his PhD and MS degrees in Computer Science from the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his BSc degree in Computer Engineering from Brown University.
Angie Drobnic Holan
Angie Drobnic Holan is Director of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), an organization based at the Poynter Institute devoted to supporting fact-checking journalism and promoting information integrity around the world. The network administers the IFCN Code of Principles, a set of best practices for fact-checkers concerning accuracy, methodology, transparency, and independence. From 2013 to 2023, she was editor-in-chief of PolitiFact and was a reporter on its Pulitzer Prize-winning team that fact-checked the 2008 US presidential election. She holds an MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an MLIS from the University of South Florida, and she was a 2023 Nieman fellow at Harvard University. She is based in Washington, DC.
Olga Kamenchuk
Olga Kamenchuk, PhD, is an Associate Research Professor in the Institute for Policy Research and Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. She is a co-principal investigator on the Comparative National Elections Project for Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbian electoral studies. Previously, she was co-director of the Eurasian Security & Governance Program at the Ohio State University (OSU) Mershon Center for International Security Studies and clinical associate professor in the OSU School of Communication. Kamenchuk has over twenty years of experience working across sectors and policy contexts on a diverse range of communication, program evaluation, and public opinion projects.
Shih-Hung Lo
Shih-Hung Lo, PhD, is a Taiwanese media scholar and public intellectual whose work bridges communication, democracy, and digital governance. He is a professor at National Chung Cheng University and currently serves as chairperson of the Taiwan FactCheck Center—the first independent fact-checking organization in the Chinese-speaking world accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Lo writes widely on media freedom, disinformation, and platform accountability, and frequently contributes to global dialogues on information integrity and the future of public trust.
Ellen E. McCarthy
Ellen E. McCarthy is a national security and information integrity leader with over 30 years of experience in intelligence, defense, and public service. She is Chairwoman and CEO of the Trust in Media Cooperative (TIM), a nonprofit advancing standards and transparency to rebuild public trust in information. Previously, she served as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence & Research, Chief Operating Officer of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Director of Intelligence Operations at the US Coast Guard. Ellen also led the Intelligence & National Security Alliance and Noblis National Security Partners (NSP), shaping cybersecurity and analytics innovation. She serves on advisory boards including SAP National Security Services, Fortem Technologies, Babel Street, Penn State Applied Research Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center.
Priyanka Motaparthy
Priyanka Motaparthy, PhD, is the Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law as well as a Clinical Professor of Law. Before joining Northwestern, Priyanka was Director of the Project on Armed Conflict, Counterterrorism, & Human Rights at Columbia Law School as well as senior instructor in the Smith Family Human Rights Clinic. There, her work focused on accountability for human rights abuses in armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations. She worked closely with human rights advocates in Yemen, organizing advocacy campaigns at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and the General Assembly in New York.
Erik C. Nisbet
Erik C. Nisbet, PhD, is the Owen L. Coon Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and the founding director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy at Northwestern University. His research examines the intersection of political communication, public opinion, and strategic communication, with a focus on information integrity, democratic governance, and polarized science. Nisbet’s work explores how media, dis/misinformation, and political environments shape public attitudes and democratic outcomes in the United States and globally. He has authored nearly 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters across communication, political science, public health, and environmental science. His scholarship has been supported by major grants from the National Science Foundation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the US Department of State, Meta, and other funders.
Suzanne Nossel
Suzanne Nossel is the Lester Crown Nonresident Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy & International Order at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. An expert on human rights, multilateral diplomacy, and US foreign policy issues, she is the author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All and co-author of Is Free Speech Under Threat?. She previously served as CEO of global free expression organization PEN America and currently serves as a member of the Oversight Board, an independent body adjudicating sensitive content moderation decisions on Meta platforms. She previously served as chief operating officer of Human Rights Watch and executive director of Amnesty International USA. In 2009, Nossel served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations. From 1999 to 2001, Nossel was Deputy to the US Ambassador for United Nations Management & Reform. During her corporate career, Nossel was vice president of US business development for Bertelsmann and vice president for strategy and operations for the Wall Street Journal.
Andrew Pel
Andrew Pel is Head of Campaigns and Canadian Programs at Moonshot, where he leads applied research and intervention programs. He has overseen election integrity projects in the US, Europe, and Southeast Asia, and specializes in developing scalable, evidence-based approaches to addressing terrorism, disinformation, and online harms. He recently ran a global campaign with Google and Jigsaw that reached over 120 million people across Europe ahead of the 2024 EU Parliamentary elections, and helped over 1.5 million voters recognize online manipulation tactics. Andrew holds an MPhil in Screen Media & Cultures from the University of Cambridge.
Gordon Pennycook
Gordon Pennycook (PhD, University of Waterloo) is the Dorothy & Ariz Mehta Faculty Leadership Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. Previously, he was a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. His expertise is on the science of human reasoning and decision-making biases—including research on analytic thinking, misinformation, beliefs (conspiratorial, religious, paranormal, etc.), metacognition, overconfidence, and more. He has published over 125 peer-reviewed articles, including in journals such as Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has received early career awards from organizations such as the Association for Psychological Science, Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS), the International Social Cognition Network, and the Psychonomics Society. In 2016, he won an Ig Nobel Prize for his research on the psychology of bullshit. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, & Scientists in 2020.
Viktoriia Romaniuk
Viktoriia Romaniuk, PhD, is a communications professional and educator with extensive experience in academia, civil society, and journalism. She currently serves as the Director of the Mohyla School of Journalism at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Viktoriia also chairs the UNESCO IFAP Working Group on Information Ethics and was a visiting professor at Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, where she actively engaged in teaching and participated in academic research projects. In her professional role, she is the Deputy Chief Editor of StopFake, a fact-checking organization dedicated to combating propaganda and disinformation in the media. Her research interests focus on disinformation studies, media ethics, fact-checking and prebunking strategies, media literacy, and the impact of artificial intelligence on journalism and information integrity.
Erin Saltman
Erin Saltman, PhD, is the Senior Membership & Programs Director at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). She has worked in the technology, NGO, and academic sectors, building out international counterterrorism strategies and programs. Saltman’s background and expertise includes analyzing processes of radicalization within a range of regional and socio-political contexts. Her research and publications have focused on the evolving nature of violent extremism online, youth radicalization, and the evaluation of positive intervention tactics. Saltman leads GIFCT’s membership work with global technology companies and multistakeholder knowledge-exchange programs. She was formerly Meta’s Head of Counterterrorism and Dangerous Organizations Policy across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She has also worked as a practitioner for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) Global and other NGOs focused on counterterrorism and common vulnerabilities and exposures before joining GIFCT.
Jim Warren
Jim Warren is the Chicago-based executive editor of NewsGuard, a New York-based firm that does non-ideological assessments of the credibility of news and information websites, TV news shows, podcasts, AI, and social media. Its work on Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation in the US and Europe is among work routinely cited by media worldwide, including The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Le Monde, Bloomberg, major Italian and German newspapers, and Wired magazine. He is the former Washington bureau chief of both The Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, former managing editor of The Chicago Tribune, former publisher of the alternative Chicago Reader weekly, and co-founder of the Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit that produced two pages of local news in the Midwest print edition of The New York Times, including his twice-weekly column. He’s been a media columnist and writer for Vanity Fair and The Atlantic, and he is perhaps the only person to have been a paid political pundit for CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, a cable news trifecta. He also does political analysis for WGN-TV in Chicago.
Leslie Vinjamuri
Leslie Vinjamuri, PhD, is the President and CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She joined the Council in 2025 from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, in London, where she served as director of the US and the Americas program and previously as dean of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs, associate fellow, and trustee. Vinjamuri is Professor of Practice in International Relations and Diplomacy at SOAS University of London, where she was previously professor of international relations (tenured). She is a Marshall Commissioner and vice chair of the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs.
Emily Vraga
Emily Vraga, PhD, is the Don & Carole Larson Professor in Health Communication at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research tests methods to identify and correct misinformation on social media, to improve audience resiliency through news literacy training, and to encourage attention to more diverse content online. Vraga has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters and has a new co-authored book on correcting misinformation on social media. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and she has consulted with health organizations, social media platforms, and government agencies to improve efforts to address misinformation online.