Young Professionals Briefing: Youth Social Media Engagement and Views on Foreign Policy

Panelists discuss media consumption and views on foreign policy among youth in the United States and globally.

The CFR Young Professionals Briefing Series provides an opportunity for those early in their careers to engage with CFR. The briefings feature remarks by experts on critical global issues and lessons learned in their careers. These events are intended for individuals who have completed their undergraduate studies and have not yet reached the age of thirty to be eligible to apply for CFR term membership.

DUNDERDALE: Good evening, everyone. If everyone wants to find their seats, we’re going to get started in just a second. Thank you for joining tonight’s Council on Foreign Relations meeting, which is part of our Young Professionals Briefing Series. My name is Sam Dunderdale and I’m deputy director of the Term Member Program here at the Council. In addition to young professionals we also have CFR term members, young corporate leaders, and staff members here joining in person in Washington, as well as over a hundred participants on Zoom. So welcome, one and all.  

If you are here as part of the Young Professional Series you were most likely recommended by a CFR member. And the Young Professional Series is for individuals who are interested in foreign policy, would like to be engaged with the Council, and who have not yet reached the minimum age of thirty to be able to apply for the CFR Term Membership Program. If you’re interested in the Term Member Program, we encourage you to find more info on CFR’s website, CFR.org, or talk to one of the term members in the room tonight about their experience. As part of the young professionals group you should receive invitations to about one event per month in either New York, D.C., or on Zoom, and also a monthly newsletter which highlights recent CFR resources and member events.  

And tonight, we have a wonderful panel with CFR’s Edward Murrow Press Fellow Elise Labott and the press and public affairs officer for the Embassy of Italy and the author of Digital Diplomacy: Conversations on Innovation in Foreign Policy, Andreas Sandre. There will be a conversation on stage for about thirty minutes, followed by thirty minutes of Q&A with you all. We will take questions in person as well as on Zoom, so, you know, prep your questions now. And for those of you here in Washington, we’ll also have a reception after the panel just outside the doors. An important reminder before we begin is that this meeting is on the record. So thank you, again, for joining us this evening. 

And now I turn it over to our presider, Kat Duffy, senior fellow for digital and cyberspace policy here at CFR. Over to you. 

DUFFY: Hi, everyone. Hello, young professionals. Welcome to today’s Council on Foreign Relations young professionals briefing entitled, Youth, Social Media Engagement, and Views on Foreign Policy. I really try to do my due diligence. They give me, like, literally, three things I have to say. So I’m going to say these three things. I’m Kat Duffy, senior fellow for digital and cyberspace policy here at the Council. And I’ll be presiding over today’s discussion. I do want to remind everyone that this meeting is on the record. As Sam said, we’ll have about half an hour or so for discussion and then about a half an hour for Q&A.  

But before we begin with our amazing speakers—and, I mean, Andreas’ socks are chef’s kiss. He’s, like, really bringing the Italian sartorial flair to CFR, and I’m here for it. Before we start— 

SANDRE: It’s an American brand, though. 

DUFFY: Say what?  

SANDRE: It’s an American brand.  

DUFFY: Oo! Which one? 

SANDRE: Happy Socks. 

DUFFY: Happy Socks. Oh, that’s so nice. 

LABOTT: But you—it’s all the way the Italian wears it. (Laughter.) 

DUFFY: And so before we start with our panelists, I wanted to take a little bit of the temperature in the room. Youth social media engagement. How many of you currently identify as a youth? Who watched—has anyone watched My Cousin Vinny, where the judge was like, what, so— 

LABOTT: “Youse a yoot?” 

DUFFY: Yes, the “yoots.” OK, so maybe about half the room would kind of identify as a youth. When you think about the term “social media” or “social media engagement,” I want to run through a series of platforms. Raise your hand if you think of it as social media. Facebook. Now, keep your hand up if you use Facebook. (Laughter.) That’s what I thought. That’s what I thought. I won’t do MySpace. Instagram. Now, keep your hands up if you use Instagram. Cool, cool. Threads. I’m going through the whole Meta family right now. (Laughter.) OK, perfect. LinkedIn. How many people still—how many people are using LinkedIn? You’re all at CFR, so you definitely—(laughter)—in D.C. You definitely all use LinkedIn.  

How many of you use WhatsApp? How many of you—keep your hands up if you would define WhatsApp as social media. OK. Telegram. Sorry, how many of you use Telegram? How many of you—and how many of you would define Telegram as social media? OK. WeChat. Who here uses WeChat? Who here would describe WeChat as social media? OK. Who here would describe Discord as social media? How many of you use Discord? Same thing goes for Reddit. Who would describe Reddit as social media? How many of you use Reddit, on the reg? How many of you write anything on Reddit? (Laughter.) Uh huh. D.C. crowd, all lurkers. Y’all are lurkers. (Laughter.) That’s what I thought.  

Twitter, X. How many, OK—so define it as social media. How many of you are still using X on the reg? How many of you are using it as in, like, you’re posting things on it as opposed to just looking at it? OK. And the final one, Bluesky. How many of you would define Bluesky as social media?  

LABOTT: TikTok. 

DUFFY: OK, that’s fair.  

LABOTT: Well, we’re just assuming that everyone in the room uses TikTok, I guess, is what’s going on. 

DUFFY: Yeah. That’s true. I’ll get there. I’ll get there. And then how many of you are using Bluesky? Interesting. OK, sorry, there’s going to be a couple more. You’re right. How many of you think of Snap as social media? How many of you use Snap? How many of you used to use Snap? (Laughs.) That’s what I thought. How—and TikTok. I’m assuming everybody thinks of TikTok as social media, yeah? How many of you use TikTok? How many of you don’t use TikTok and are constantly frustrated by your friends who send you TikTok links in chats that you can’t open because you won’t, like, download TikTok? Yeah. OK.  

Any others? What have I missed?  

LABOTT: Substack.  

DUFFY: Oh, Substack. Great.  

LABOTT: Substack.  

DUFFY: Who thinks of Substack as social media?  

LABOTT: Hmm, interesting.  

DUFFY: And who’s using Substack? Anybody writing on Substack? Nice. So you’re mostly reading Substack, is that correct? Anything else? OK. Thank you, guys. That was a really helpful scene setter, I think, for us, and, like, pour one out for Snap. (Laughter.) 

All right. And so with that, I want to introduce you to our amazing panelists today. I hate reading bios. It’s a cardinal sin, in my book, for a presider. So I’m going to ask Elise and Andreas to introduce themselves and what, for each of them, would really be, like, a win to walk out of the discussion today, in terms of what you’ve heard from people, what you’ve been able to impart. What, for you, would be like one beau monde that could come out of our discussion today? Andreas, let’s start with you.  

SANDRE: For me, would be to really— 

DUFFY: First, introduce—like— 

SANDRE: Oh, I’ll introduce myself first. My name is Andreas. Hi. I’m Italian. I work at the Italian embassy, where I lead the digital diplomacy shop. And we define digital diplomacy in many different ways. One way is, obviously, social media. And we can engage with audiences here in the U.S. with social media channels. The other way is policy and technology policy. How can we engage with big tech, both here in the United States but also at home and in Europe, to sort of further our tech policy priorities? And the other ways is how can we bring more audiences, and how can we inject ourselves as government in conversations that we usually don’t see government very present? And so it’s kind of, like, a big portfolio. I love it. I’m a geek at heart. So I love everything technology. I love everything social media.  

You mentioned all the social media platforms. You probably find me on 90 percent of them. And some of them, very active. I started on Substack, for instance, this past October, I think. It’s painfully—it takes a lot of my time, especially on weekends, because that’s where I have more free time. And so I try to write as much as possible. But TikTok has been one of my big passions during the COVID pandemic, because that’s where TikTok became very big. And actually became very big for government institutions, especially international organizations, where a lot of those organizations—starting from the U.N., the WHO, and many others—started to join TikTok to sort of, like, reach Gen Z and younger generations to fight misinformation around COVID, for instance. And so that’s when I started to sort of, like, peruse a little bit around TikTok.  

I ran also—separate from my work at the embassy, I wrote a book called Digital Diplomacy. That was ten years ago this past February. And I coauthored a new book that came out last year now, it’s been a year, it’s called the Oxford Handbook on Digital Diplomacy. It’s sort of like a big tomb on what digital diplomacy is. And I sort of coauthor a chapter on TikTok and algorithmic geopolitics. On top of that, I love, as I said, all social media. So I experiment on those as much as possible. If you go on TikTok, Instagram, go check out—it’s called @WeAreDigitalDiplomacy. And the idea there—and that’s also what I would like to get out of this meeting today—is really understanding how we can move from content for the sake of content to conversations. And how government can be part of those conversations, without necessarily, sort of, like, starting those conversation, but really injecting itself, and sort of, like, being part in understanding those conversations, rather than just, like, monologues. 

DUFFY: Thank you. And, Elise, I want to turn it over to you. And if you could start by giving them your sort of legacy media background, and then also make sure to explain sort of where you’ve moved in that arc. 

LABOTT: Yeah. Sure. OK. My name is Elise Labott. I am the CFR Edward R. Murrow press fellow here at the Council. I was originally a CNN correspondent covering the State Department and kind of global affairs, foreign policy for about twenty years. And then left at, I think, the end of 2018. And I’ve been teaching at American University and writing. I also write a Substack. It’s called Cosmopolitics. And it’s about the intersection of foreign policy and politics, how they intersect.  

And then I also have a small digital media company called Zivvy News, which is really a—it’s a—I would call it a digital platform for Gen Z, because I found—and it’s really interesting what you said, Andreas, about COVID. I found that during COVID everyone was talking about, oh, you know, how can we aid in COVID recovery? You’re on these, like, endless chats, these Zoom chats, and everything. And I said, well, you really need to have a conversation among people about what the post-COVID society would look like. And I found that young people really aren’t part of that conversation.  

And if you look at the media, or you look at—you know, especially the mainstream media—they may have a Gen Z person on there, like, oh, we spoke to a Gen Zer, like they’re a monkey in the zoo or something. But I felt like no one was really bringing in young people into the conversation about issues shaping their future and weren’t really treating young people as stakeholders. So I started Zivvy News, which is—you know, we have young contributors. I like to say it’s for Gen Z about Gen Z. I provide kind of editorial guidance, but it’s really about what are the issues young people care about? Who are the young people moving the needle in your communities? And we also have a Substack as well. And I encourage you to look at both of those Substacks. 

But here at the Council, that’s really what I’m working about from a foreign affairs lens. I really found that, you know, particularly after the war in Gaza, I really found it interesting how, you know, a lot of young people had a certain opinion of the war that kind of differed from a lot of other people’s. And I felt like, you know, how can we get young people together discussing some of these things in a safe space where people can share opinions, it’s safe to disagree? And that’s kind of what I’m working on here at the Council, is how do we further young people’s understanding about foreign affairs. How do we get community around us?  

And that’s kind of what I would think of as a win is—you know, I’d love to, you know, when we open it up to Q&A, just kind of hear from you about—you know, I know this isn’t a typical audience. And I meet with people at CFR, like, young staffers all the time, trying to talk about these issues. And we know that all of you aren’t, you know, a kind of typical young person. You’re already, you know, in a foreign affairs field. You’re really interested in those fields. But what are your friends saying about all this? How are they getting their news? How does that shape their opinions? And what is the next generation of the TikToks, and the, you know, Instagrams, or, you know, the Substacks, where young people can kind of come together and talk about the issues around the world that are concerning you? 

DUFFY: So I want to—I want to go back and ask the audience—and can I—Liz, I’m sorry. I should have checked this out. Are we streaming this? OK, that’s great. I’ve done a terrible job to anyone viewing online to explain what the audience was raising their hands around. So I’ll do better, and I’m sorry. So for those in person, how many of you are getting the bulk of your information about foreign affairs from a sort of established media source? Like, you know, New York Times or Al Jazeera or Washington Post, or—OK. How many of you are getting it from more, like, specific publications? So something like—(coughs)—Foreign Affairs—(laughter)—or Foreign Policy, or—yeah, so, like, that longer form is less. And then, how many of you are also—are getting a bulk of your understanding of what’s happening in foreign affairs from some social media platform? OK, so I would say— 

LABOTT: How many are getting at least some? 

DUFFY: Yeah.  

LABOTT: OK. 

DUFFY: So for those who are joining us virtually, like, I would say a solid two-thirds of the room is getting their foreign affairs information from sort of more established media sources. Specific outlets and publications were a much lower ratio. And social media, in terms of the bulk of foreign affairs, was not terribly much, but almost everyone in the room was getting some of their information from social media. And so with that, I want to now turn it back over to you all to ask, you know, when I think about—you know, I was in law school, like, studying international law when I was in my twenties, right? You’d think I’d be someone who was, like, well-versed in foreign affairs. But there was no way that I had access to the amount of information and the number of insights that people in their twenties currently do.  

But I was also getting information that was—like, it was more curated. And maybe it was curated in a very political bent, or maybe it was just being curated by experts. But for both of you—and, Elise, I’ll start with you—what do you see, from a—as a, you know, long-term journalist who understands national security and credibility of information and audience needs, what are your biggest concerns about how that information is flowing right now in foreign affairs? And what, to you, are the biggest opportunities that we perhaps haven’t really grasped as much as we—as strongly as we could in the foreign affairs space? 

LABOTT: Mmm hmm. Well, again, like, just talking to all you and seeing how many of you are still kind of getting some of your news at least from, you know, we call it legacy media or mainstream media. I would love to know how many of your friends are doing that, right? And, you know, we—again, we know we’re—this is not a typical space. But if you talk to your, you know, I don’t know, college friends that are—that are out in the Midwest, or out in the South, or, you know, not in a—not in a kind of Washington setting, I think a lot of people are—a lot of young people are getting the majority of their news on foreign affairs from social media.  

And what happens, we know, is that you have these algorithms, you have these echo chambers, and you’re only getting news that you want, that you know kind of agrees with your point of view. Or, you know, you’ll make an emotional decision based on some TikTok video, or some Instagram video, or something you read on social media, and then you’re getting more of it, and then you’re getting more of it. And you get, you know, so, you know, firm in your convictions, because, you know, the social media is catering to your views. And I don’t think—I think—and I’m really concerned not only about that, but the combination of the polarization in society, where it’s us and them.  

And so I think one way about the war in Gaza, and Andreas thinks another way about the war in Gaza, and we can’t even have a civil conversation about it because of the polarization, and the lack of civility, and the lack of civil discourse in the country. And so it’s not a solutions-based discussion. Like, I always say—and this is what Zivvy was all about—it’s, like, it should be us against the problem. It shouldn’t be me versus you. And so that’s really my biggest concern, not only that people don’t understand, you know, facts. They’re getting a lot of their news from news influencers.  

And Andreas had a really great thing at the Italian Embassy, and I encourage you to check out his sites and everything he’s doing. And we had something— 

DUFFY: His 12,000 social media profiles. 

LABOTT: Yeah. And on social media—on social media influencers, a lot of these people aren’t journalists, right? And, like, some of these people, have two million followers. And they’re not journalists. And they don’t know how to seek out facts. So they’re just kind of reading what they are. And then they’ll go on, you know, their channel, and say, oh, OK, this is what’s going on. And so many people are following that—following that. And so I know that they’re looking for authenticity. They’re looking for someone that, you know, they can relate to. But at the same time, they may be getting, you know, kind of a snippet of what’s really going on.  

And I know nowadays everyone’s busy, everyone’s scrolling. You know, we don’t have time for nuance, and we don’t have time for substance. But when you’re talking about foreign affairs and you really want to understand, and you want to make decisions based on those understandings, then it becomes more important, right? So if you’re going to go out to a protest, at least know what your protest—and I’m not—again, not saying that about anything in this room. But I found, like, for instance, like, I know that, you know, there’s very firm convictions. But I want those—I would love to kind of inoculate people with substance and nuance before they make their emotional decisions based on that. So I think those are the concerns.  

I think the opportunity is—I think young people want connection. I think, again, they want to have their voice heard. And I think—as Andreas was saying, I do think there’s an opportunity for more community around these issues, more connections, more conversations, more dialog instead of just, like, yeah, you can watch that video, but you could also go into a chatroom, or a Slack, or maybe go to a pop-up event. You know, COVID’s over. We’re all getting out again. Maybe there are more opportunities.  

And then there’s so much technology. You and I have spoken about this. There’s VR. There’s gaming. Like, there are so many other ways to kind of learn about the news. It doesn’t have to be an article. It doesn’t have to be a one-minute TikTok video. Like, the sky’s the limit. And so how can we use the technology that’s out there, how can we use people’s desire for connections, and find new ways of educating people and having discussions based on the issues? 

DUFFY: Well, and, Andreas, you know, you wrote Digital Diplomacy, like, ten years ago, right?  

LABOTT: He was really a pioneer in the field, I will say. He’s very modest. 

SANDRE: I’m that old. (Laughter.) 

LABOTT: He was right out of high school. 

SANDRE: I wish. 

DUFFY: And, you know, as I understand it, one of the, sort of, core—like, a core focus of that book was essentially that you were seeing diplomats, that you were seeing the foreign affairs community, essentially use social media to reach new audiences and connect with individuals that they hadn’t previously connected to. That was also, arguably, at a time when rates of trust were significantly higher in social media platforms, and the number of social media platforms being used was significantly less. So in this environment, as you look across all of these different platforms, like, the United States and Italy have about comparable rates of trust in—like, overall trust in the news. And it’s about 32-34 percent. It’s not great, according to— 

LABOTT: Pretty low. 

DUFFY: —a study from Oxford. And so as you look across all of these different environments, where do you see opportunities for trust building, for bringing people together, right, for this type of new civic engagement? And where, on the other hand, are you, like, we got to stop trying to do this thing? (Laughter.) We got to—like, that was a great idea. It didn’t work out. We should probably move on. 

SANDRE: So I look at it as a member of a government. And so not only trust in media is very low, but usually trust in government in general is very low. How can I talk to any audience without my own people trusting me, and let alone foreign audiences understanding me? So, first of all, I think, like, for us at least, building trust for us means to explain who we are and why we’re here in the United States. If you talk to an average American, they don’t know what an embassy does or what a consulate does. So that’s very important. We’re not just a country, but we’re tourism, we’re manufacturing, you know, we’re innovation, we’re young people, we’re startups as well.  

And the other way is to look at how can I build trust in this environment? And the way that we’re looking at it right now is through creators and influencers. And so in the past few years, we started a very large creator program where we try to understand who can we work with so that those people have already the trust of their audiences. How can we talk to them? How can we establish a conversation through them? How can we bring them to the embassy? And how can, sort of, like, a creator diplomacy, you know, start here in D.C. for us, so that we can really have meaningful conversations around different topics—that can range from, you know, how young people want to go to spend a semester in Italy, or, you know— 

LABOTT: Or older people. (Laughter.) 

SANDRE: —or retire, for older people. Or, how can we understand that if I go buy a Dolce & Gabbana shoes, it’s not just a beautiful shoe but it’s—the pipeline behind it that is one of the most revere and sort of, like, copied pipeline in the manufacturing industry? The Ferrari. It’s not just the design itself but it’s, you know, the power of the engine and the innovation that they bring to the sector.  

So I think, like, working with creators has changed for us. We were kind of lost at some point in building trust, because it was almost impossible for us to really reach out to audiences that would really trust a logo, because especially if you’re on social media you would see the Italian Embassy as a logo. Oftentimes—90 percent of people don’t understand what that logo stands for and why we are on social media, why we’re trying to reach out to different audiences.  

And back to the book, ten years ago the world was much different. Digital diplomacy was not even existing back then. And one of the idea of the book was also to talk about innovation. Especially in government, when we think about innovation, we think about something dangerous. Innovation is disruption, at the end of the day. And disruption in government is always seen as a negative, never a positive. Disruption is not a positive nor a negative. But innovation is also about experimenting. And especially when you’re in communication and social media, experimenting is key. You can fail, yes, and you can fail big. Obviously, you have to try not to fail big at all. And so you have to try to prevent that. But that’s also—that was also part of the—of why the book came out. 

And not a lot has changed in terms of how governments really understand innovation, because if you talk to any government official, disruption is still a negative, unfortunately. It’s never going to be, possibly, a positive. But there’s a different way of looking at technology and digital so that they can bring more opportunities—AI, startups, technology in general. So I think that’s also where we’re trying—where I’m sort of seeing, like, a difference from ten years ago. 

DUFFY: And to give you all some understanding of, like, how much this world has changed, I made my first phone call to a major social media platform about a human rights concern in 2009.  

LABOTT: What was the issue? 

DUFFY: I’m not sure what level of classification it’s under, but I will say that, essentially, with one phone call, a leading global social media platform rolled back a global software update in order to make sure that rights to expression and association would not be repressed in an authoritarian nation.  

LABOTT: I know what it is. 

DUFFY: These are not—this is not the world we live in now. But for those of us who started in it a long time ago, that’s—when we were younger, when we were younger professionals, that’s the world of possibility that we were inhabiting, right? And that’s truly how we saw a lot of the possibility here. So I think there’s been a long running curve for all of us.  

Do you think, both of you—you know, I was struck with the topic for this discussion being so focused on social media engagement, because there’s so many ways to use technology for engagement that have nothing to do with social media. So to what degree do you think we risk over-indexing on like those existing platforms? Like, you saw how much of this room used to use Snap. Basically, for those who are watching, basically all of the room—very close to all of the room. And almost none of the room now uses Snap, because you’ve aged out, right? It’s just not a young professionals platform anymore.  

But when I was starting we were using MySpace, right, and, like, Orkut, and Friendster. So where do you think there’s longevity in trying to work with existing social media platforms? And where do you think instead there is a through line that we need to be tapping into that is broader than any particular platform? So, like, Elise, you’ve very specifically chosen Substack for a reason, right, like, as opposed to posting things just a LinkedIn post, or, you know. 

LABOTT: Well, actually, so I have my Substack, but then I’m posting—that’s just, like, where I’m kind of originating the content, right? What everyone is doing is we’re putting that content with a link and a little blurb on LinkedIn, on Twitter or X, on Bluesky, on all these others, to kind of reach everybody where they are, right? So you want to reach everybody where they are. We didn’t even talk about YouTube, right? Which is, like, a lot of people are getting their news on YouTube, for good or bad.  

I think where I’d love to get is to get to a place where, you know, we’re using technology as an aid, rather than a, you know, place. And so, you know, technology is the added bonus, as opposed to—it’s a tool, right? It’s not the end-all, be-all. Because, as I was saying, like, you know, where is the next TikTok, where is the next X? Right now Substack is trying to make everybody, kind of, use the notes feature as a new Twitter. And, you know, at one point, you know, Twitter was a great place for engagement. Now it’s just like an incubus of hate and, you know, name calling. So people are turning away from that. But the more people that turn to Substack, I’m afraid that will happen as well. And so I do think that—I think—you know, I feel like these social media platforms, I hope we get to a place where they’re, like, kind of sprinkles on top of a more, broader kind of civic engagement, you know, movement. 

And, again, like, you know, are there places where we can connect in person? Can we go—you know, can we use technology for gaming, for instance? You know, look at all these people that are using, like, Roblox, or all these things, you know, to connect around the world. Could there be a VR where you go to a VR kind of place, or a pop-up, and you spend a half hour, you know, I don’t know, as a Ukrainian in the war, and then you kind of all talk about it and feel—I mean, these are just kind of ideas that we’ve all been—you know, we’ve been brainstorming this year.  

But I do think that—I think these social media platforms can’t be the end-all, be-all, because, like, what if, you know, something happened in the—I don’t know, the internet broke. Does that mean we’re not going to—I mean, I’m sure it would be fixed, but, you know, does that mean we’re not going to connect with one another? That’s why like—I mean, it’s interesting what you said about, like, is, you know, Telegram, or WhatsApp, or these social media platforms or are they messaging and community and connection platforms? And so I think—you know, as I think you were saying too—like, I think the goal is to get to more connection and conversation and less just content. 

DUFFY: And, Andreas, what—and I want everyone to start thinking of their questions because as soon as Andreas answers this we’re going to open it up for questions. But, Andreas, what about you? When you think about the through lines, like— 

SANDRE: So I never look in terms of—although I’m a geek, I never look at this in terms of technology, per se. Again, I look at where the conversations are and how I can be part of those conversations. So I opened my Substack because I thought Substack was getting much bigger and conversations were happening on Substack. Just for the reasons that you explained, Substack has started to sort of, like, change itself into a more social media platform, where it’s not just long-form content that people post and publish but also real conversations in notes, in chats, where real conversation actually happened. I mean, my Substack is called Content is Not King. But when I go into my Substack, especially in the chat section, I developed, like, in the past, like, five, six months, around 20,000 followers—20,000 subscribers, they’re called on Substack.  

But those subscribers are really active. They really have something to say. And they really want to find a place to say things. And they use the chat feature of Substack a lot. And so that’s where I spend most of my time on Substack, not just posting. You have to post to create an audience. But a lot of conversations do happen there. But I also use the embassy as sort of, like, convening space. I run the Digital Diplomacy Series there, where the face to face is also very important. Where we talk about technology. But technology is not the main focus. The conversations are. 

This coming Wednesday, one of the conversations we’re going to have is about pop culture. And the people that we brought in the rooms are obviously the platforms, because they’re important for talking about pop culture, but one of the people is a real house—Bravo’s Real Housewives. They have a big audience. It’s not just because they’re on social media but because they really talk about real people’s issues. And we need to bring government in those real people’s issues. And oftentimes they’re very polarizing and political themselves. So we’ll see how the conversation goes.  

DUFFY: I love it. All right, so I want to turn it over to questions, both to our guests online and those in the room. We’ll start in the room. Yes, please. 

Q: Hello. Thank you so much for coming. My name is Ashley.  

I have two questions, hopefully that will be—anyway. My first question. You mentioned echo chambers in social media. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the echo chambers in legacy media, right? Thinking about the fact that, like, when everyone was watching Dan Rather everyone was in the same echo chamber, right? And then my second question, specifically for you, Elise, which is: We know that a lot of algorithms, and the way that social media companies make their money, is through engagement. And so as someone who is running a nonprofit social media company, can you talk about sort of transitioning away from a for-profit model that encourages, like, emotional reactions, like you were talking about? 

LABOTT: Sure. Yeah. I’ll take both of those. 

On the algorithm and the echo chamber, you’re right. And it’s a great point. But I think, like, when you go back to kind of Dan Rather, someone like Dan Rather, or Peter Jennings, like, there was no—it was an echo chamber of kind of neutral news, right? So it was, like, there wasn’t, like, one side. It was just, this is what happened. There’s no opinion about it. If you want to read the opinion page, go ahead, but I have zero opinion about it. And, you know, Edward R. Murrow, you know, is what my fellowship is named after. And he was, you know, this is the news. I would love to know what he would think in today’s, you know, political climate.  

And so I think the difference with the algorithms now is you’re only getting news based on your opinion, because the way you engage and the way you see—that’s why I—like, even on social media I follow a wide range of different people and a wide range of views, so I’m getting—I don’t—my—you know, my algorithm is, like, beauty products, cocktails in D.C., cats—not cats, but, you know, like, all different—all different things. And then, you know, to the extreme right, to the extreme left. And so—and sometimes I say if I’m getting hit by the right and the left I know I’m doing a good job.  

But, like, I encourage y’all to, you know, seek—especially on social media where the algorithms kind of follow you—to seek a wide range of diverse views. And I think, you know, we may get more towards—like, you see Twitter, X, is going more to the right ever since Elon Musk took over. I think it is going more to the right. And that’s why, like, people on the left a little bit more are going to Bluesky. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. And so you’re going to have to be on more platforms to just get that balanced diet of views. 

On the nonprofit, I did try to do a profitable—like, a for-profit, and the business model wasn’t there. And I kind of thought about it. And I was like, all right, the business model wasn’t there. But this really is more of a social impact model. And so—but the goal is to kind of encourage funders to, you know, say that, OK, this is a civic impact engagement. You know, that’s what Zivvy is. It’s, like, Gen Z civic. And I’m hoping that, you know, funders will see—and then, you know, if I build it—like if you know, the movie Field of Dreams—if you build it, they will come. And I do think, like, you know, as young people are turning away from mainstream media because of lack of trust, you know, maybe they are going to trust, like, nonprofits who their only goal is to bring you together. Their only goal is to make you think. We’ll see how it goes.  

DUFFY: Well, we certainly have some more targeted nonprofit kind of news outlets that have grown out over the years, right? Orgs like ProPublica, right? Lots of people are now reading the Information. So— 

LABOTT: Right. But I want to—I want to go back to the idea that it’s hard. Everyone says they want to reach you. They want to reach young people. Oh, how do we reach young people? What’s the goal? What’s the goal? But when you ask them to put up money for a platform that directly reaches them, they’re like, eh, I want to go, you know, with the audience that I already have, OK? So, again, even by the funding choices, they’re not treating you as stakeholders, right?  

And I think maybe that’s why young people, like, appreciate, kind of, young news influencers, because it’s one of you, and you’re—they’re talking to your own. But there are people out there that do want to give you a voice on the issues shaping your future. They do want to help you connect with one another. And I think, like, look, you guys are going to be running the world in the not-too-distant future. And it’s not, like, oh—you know, oh, I’m eighteen, dad. Time for my New York Times subscription. Or, like, you’re going to be twenty-five and it’s, like, OK, here are the keys to the world, go do it. Like, there needs to be this generational handover. And we need to help you assume the mantle of leadership. And I think that’s what my goal—my goal is about, with the nonprofit. 

DUFFY: But I think, speaking of that, you know, Andreas, leaning back into this echo chambers question as well, it’s always interesting to me. There’s a sort of conception that, like, in the United States we had this halcyon era where everyone believed the same thing, and the news was objective and credible, and it covered everything equally. And we had truth, and now we no longer have truth, right? And I say this—like, I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. And we had a Pulitzer Prize-winning local paper. And I can guarantee you that if I had been exactly me, but I had been a Black young woman growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, I would not have seen myself or the issues that my community was navigating reflected in the Courier-Journal nearly as much as I was seeing the issues of my, you know, middle, upper-middle class— 

LABOTT: And you are seeing it now. 

DUFFY: —like, Irish-German Catholic family, which is, like, a very prototypical demographic in Louisville. Coming from Italy, there’s less of that idea, I think, maybe, of that, like, you had this halcyon—like, there was this moment where everyone was, sort of, agreeing on the news. Like, do you have the same sort of nostalgia for something like that?  

SANDRE: I think growing up in Italy was very similar, to be honest. And I actually really did not grow up in Italy because I grew up most of my life in Geneva, in Switzerland. But I think, like, every time we think about echo chambers, they always existed. They will always exist. It’s like the word—the word “disruption.” We always think about it in a very negative way. Is the echo chamber a negative, is it a positive? Perhaps it’s not either. And so we really need to understand. We really need to be aware of those echo chambers. We really need to be aware that we are part of some. Even if you’re really aware of the echo chamber, you know that you’re part of the echo chamber. How can we really sort of, like, leverage that? How can we exit the echo chamber, and really better understand the world in a completely different way? So that’s the main issue there, for me. 

DUFFY: And, spoiler alert, there is no echo chamber that is going to be stronger or more convincing to you than your group chat, right? (Laughter.) That’s the OG echo chamber. OK, so more questions. Oh my gosh, we have so many. Let’s take, like, two at a time. I’m going to start with these two in the back, and then I’ll move to this front table.  

Q: Hi. My name is Anjali Bhatt. I’m the social media manager at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.  

DUFFY: Oh, great.  

Q: So I have, like, so many thoughts.  

DUFFY: Yeah, I love it. 

Q: But I’ll narrow it down to two. One, I would love your guys’ thoughts on podcasts and how podcasts play into this. More and more people are getting their news from podcasts. And then I feel like we’ve made sort of a full circle to, like, video podcasts, of just, like, people talking into mics but that’s a video. (Laughter.) And now that’s content too. So I would love your thoughts on that. And then, secondly, I want to be on the record. I love my job. I love my job so much. (Laughter.) I love my job. Yes, and spending the last, like, six years of my life in, like, the depths of political social media is, like, not great for my mental health.  

DUFFY: We’ll have more drinks after. 

Q: Exactly. That’s why I’m here, right?  

DUFFY: Hundred percent. 

Q: So the internet can be a really mean, bad, negative place. And, like you said, you were worried that Substack was kind of—might become that, as more people use it and come from Twitter. What do you think, sort of, the future of that is? And then how do we make that better? Thank you. 

DUFFY: Got it. OK. And over here. 

Q: Hello. My name is Lev Zinchenko. I work for Razom for Ukraine. It’s a nonprofit based in D.C.  

My question—well, I’m a Ukrainian. Obviously, I have to ask this question. We’re talking about very—you know, in a very positive manner about digital diplomacy. But what about digital counter-diplomacy, that is being conducted by— 

LABOTT: That’s a great point, mmm hmm. 

Q: Yeah, by Russia, by China, by authoritarian states? You know, I spent three years in Brussels. And I’ve seen the Russian influence in Europe. And I think in Italy it’s very—it’s less of a problem now, but it used to be very big. It had a very big presence back in the day. But right now we’re seeing more and more presence, especially, you know, Voice of America and Radio Free Liberty—Free Europe is not there anymore. Hopefully, they will come back. But we see that Russia and China will exploit these avenues to influence us, the younger population, younger generation. So could you expand on that? Would love to hear a little more thoughts about that. Thank you. 

DUFFY: I love it. So do you want to start on that one? 

SANDRE: I’ll start from—repeat your name, sorry? So I can think about the first time that Crimea was invaded. That was when social media was very simple. You know, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, more or less. That was the space. The United States, together with other allies, started a campaign back then called United for Ukraine. That United for Ukraine, that was, like, a hashtag. That was the campaign. That was, like, very viral. The next day, Russia, sort of, like, used the same hashtag very simply with the opposite—the opposite idea. So using social media to sort of counter-campaigning, it’s been there for a long time now.  

Now, the role of social media companies is key here, and how governments work with those social media company is also key. Oftentimes we see them as, you know, the free product that we can use, especially if we’re the users. They’re not. I mean, we are the product, both government, you people, everybody who’s on social media. So for government and legislators to work with social media companies is very key. Now, how to work with the social media companies is the main issue here because, if you look at Europe versus the United States, sort of like the way that we target social media companies is completely different. We overregulate back in Europe. We almost don’t regulate here in the United States.  

Is there a middle ground? Perhaps there is. But how can—how can really government work together with social media companies that, sort of, like, their main focus is business? Is, you know, giving back to their stockholders, shareholders. So it’s not a simple—a simple—there’s no simple answer, as far as I look at it. Obviously we need to be more aware of countering misinformation and disinformation campaigns. We need to work on the legislative side. We need to work with users as well, so that people really understand from a very young age what a social media campaign is and how it can become a disinformation campaign. So there are many different ways.  

In terms of podcasts, how many of you listen to at least one podcast? There you go. You have your answer. I mean, I think that’s a new way of looking at long-form content. We always think about social media as short-form content that acts as the original Twitter has developed, the 140 characters. That does not exist anymore. Obviously, people want that little catchy phrase, but everybody wants to dig into content a little bit more. And long form is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. And that’s why podcasts are becoming bigger and bigger and bigger.  

DUFFY: I think, you know, one thing that’s really interesting on the—even the podcast question is that if you think about it as sort of—if you think of social media as a place where people come together, right, that’s not what podcasts are doing. Podcasts—they’re a one-way communication channel, right? But then people are coming together on multiple platforms around those podcasts, around the theme of those podcasts. And you really see this in the graphs that show right-wing influencers in the United States, and their sort of engagement platform—like their engagement space, the number of people they’re reaching, and left-wing influencers. 

And onto Ukraine, you know, I think one thing that’s really interesting is I’m not—I suspect that Zelensky’s incredible talent for video, right? And his incredible talent, essentially, as, like, an entertainer and a communicator, I think that was actually a really critical element early on of humanizing what was happening and rallying a lot more people to the cause of supporting Ukraine. And so it sort of cuts in these two separate ways because the more that you’re driving engagement and support through that type of platform, the easier it is to then attack that platform to undermine that support, right?  

LABOTT: And I think—I think Andreas hit it a little bit. The answer is media literacy. And I think it should be taught to young people at a very young age. Like it should be taught—it should be part of your education, you know? I think that’s a policy issue that needs to be addressed. On the podcasts, you know, I agree. And, I mean, because everyone loves video now, now everything is, like, a video podcast. I don’t know that it needs to be that. I mean, I think, like, radio is a dying art and a dying platform. And I just think that they’re—like, the audio and the kind of spoken word, like, we need to—everything is just this visual kind of thing. I mean, I’m probably going to have a video podcast soon, so I don’t know what I’m talking about. But, I mean, I wish they didn’t have them, frankly. 

However, on the issue of kind of political journalism and political social media, you know, the Peterson Institute is a supreme example of why, you know, organizations should be on social media to teach people about these issues. Social media could be a great tool, with your charts, and your graphs, and everything, to, like, help people understand these things more. And I feel like nonprofits like—or, you know, think tanks or whatever—they’re not that good—except for CFR—(laughter)—and Peterson—I think, on the whole, think tanks—and. actually, we’re doing some—our new VP of Digital Content Millie Tran—is doing some very interesting things to kind of reach out and try and—you know, with our content.  

But I think on the whole, a lot of times think tanks don’t think of social media as an important form of communication. They just think of it as, like, a, you know, throw aside of something that they have to do, not something that they should be doing. And so I think that that is, you know, kind of an important function. These think tanks have to stop thinking about, like, oh, publishing papers. You know, professionals, and researchers, and scholars, and chefs, and—you know, no one’s going to read a fourteen—you know, except for Foreign Affairs—no one’s going to read a fourteen-page article anymore. You know, researchers and scholars are going to need to find new and engaging ways to present their content. And so I think you’re—you know, you guys are serving an important function. The fact that there’s a social media person that’s coming here and engaging on this stuff, I mean, you know, that’s super important.  

DUFFY: So on the topic of counternarratives—and we have very little time and a couple more questions so I’m going to ask you for thirty seconds on this. But on the topic of counternarratives, I really don’t want to let what’s happening with the U.S. Agency for Global Media sort of float away in this conversation. Can you in thirty seconds explain the importance of U.S. AGM and what it means? 

LABOTT: Sure. Now, if you go to Substack you’ll see a very, you know, nice piece by yours truly on Cosmopolitics today that I wrote about this, and why I think it’s so important. Look, these organizations are exporting American values of democracy, of truth, of civility, of, you know, a fight against authoritarianism. It’s not, you know, by—it’s a self-inflicting wound by giving those up. I mean, they do nothing but reach out and kind of counter our adversaries. And if we’re not doing it, someone else is going to fill that narrative. 

DUFFY: Yeah. If they’re not filling that narrative space with critical information, it’s a vacuum. 

LABOTT: Yeah. Right. Exactly.  

DUFFY: OK. So I promised to go to the front table. So let’s go to this front table. And we’re going to be very brief in our answers, because CFR is quite punctual. 

LABOTT: And our questions. 

Q: Hi. My name is Carmem. I work in AI. So my question is, of course, going to be related.  

You talked about the need for digital literacy or digital media literacy. Can you talk about the need for AI literacy? Do you find that people understand—they feel like they realize what’s going on, in terms of, like, how AI is playing into the digital media space, and how algorithms are being used to, you know, create those bubbles that we alluded to earlier. Increased polarization, how those—the more polarized the content, the more it gets shared. And you can’t undo that, even when you come back with the, like—you know, the—revealing the truth, right, or the unsaying of, like, the thing. 

DUFFY: Yeah, the power of the early cognitive biases, right? Next question. 

Q: Hi. My name is Emily. 

And a lot throughout this conversation you were talking about journalists, versus creators, versus news influencers, and, of course, more recently, the other players in the social media space, whether that’s CFR and other think tanks or organizations, et cetera. I was hearing, especially at the beginning of the conversation, a perception that maybe journalists were more trustworthy. So I am curious, like, in your mind, what makes a journalist a journalist? And when, if ever, can some of these other players kind of reach that status? 

LABOTT: Sure.  

DUFFY: Amazing. Why don’t we start with that, and then move over to AI literacy? 

LABOTT: Yeah. And I think Andreas and I are going to feel the same way about the influencer. It doesn’t have to be a journalist. It just has to be someone who employs journalistic standards and tactics about what’s the truth. I’m not going to go online and see some stuff and spit it out to you if I don’t know it to be true, or if I haven’t vetted it myself. So it’s more about the standards and the way I approach my work than it is about—like, and the adherence to the truth. And, you know, today it might have a bias. I might have a little bit more voice and a little bit more opinion, but I’m not going to go out and say something unless I believe it—I really believe it to be true, because I’ve checked my facts. And there’s more of an attention to facts. 

On the— 

DUFFY: Let’s go over to Andreas first on that. 

LABOTT: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

SANDRE: So I do think that if you look at the creator space obviously oftentimes those creators are not journalists by trade. They are learning to be journalists. And it’s a process for them as well. And so while they have accumulated trust with their audiences, that audience need to be, you know, careful. You need to be careful what comes out of those creators. And that’s why, I think, like, if you see them, like, working with other institutions, for instance, it’s a good—it’s a good sign. Like, whether they work with, you know, other news organizations, whether they’re established with specific topics that they have been dealing with, especially if they’re local creators and influencers. 

DUFFY: I mean, I would say the most interesting story that came out today on tech was a creator, Mark Rober, who—I don’t know if you all saw—but did a really fascinating study and video into Tesla’s use of its own AI systems versus other cars, which use LiDAR in terms of crash protection. And it was a really amazing exposition of security failures in Teslas that would be prevented if they were using LiDAR, which is a more traditional mechanism for EVs. And so this was—or, for self-driving vehicles. And so, like, that to me is a—you know, this is a guy who, you know, became famous by creating really compelling content, and CrunchLabs boxes, and all of these other things. That’s also probably some of the best and most compelling investigative reporting that I’ve seen on Teslas in a minute. And so to me, that— 

LABOTT: Yeah, so it doesn’t have to be, like, that you’re from a legacy media organization. It just has to be, like, the way you approach how you’re educating your audience, I’d say. 

DUFFY: But, like, his story wasn’t vibes, right? (Laughter.) 

LABOTT: Yeah. It wasn’t vibes, right? 

DUFFY: And that’s a form of AI. And so with that, we’re going to close on the AI literacy question, which is to say, how—you all have thought both a lot about media literacy and what that looks like. Where is there a crossover to AI literacy? And where are we talking about something so different? 

LABOTT: I think it has to be—I think it has to be embedded into it, right? Is this—is this a deepfake? Is this—you know, the word “fake news” has gotten a little bit out of control, but is this literally fake news that’s been created? Is that photo real? You know, when Taylor—when they had some fake, you know, photos of Taylor Swift, everyone went crazy. But look at—you know, when you look at a photo now, you have to—you know, we have to be taught to kind of question things in a different way and just be aware that AI is going to is going to change. And more and more people are turning to AI to write their content and to write their stuff. And so we need to be able to ask the good questions. And I think AI literacy, media literacy—AI is media now. So it’s all, I think, embedded.  

SANDRE: I cannot say it better. I mean, literacy in general is very important when it comes to technology. And it translates in every bit of our life. And especially if you look at what—at the end of the day, who’s regulating technology is oftentimes people don’t have any literacy around technology. And so I think that’s, you know, a very interesting path that we need to still explore a little bit more, starting really early on, to really understand what technology is. No matter if it’s like media technology, AI, or anything else. 

LABOTT: Mmm hmm. Before Kat closes us up, I’m just going to make one plea or request. If you want to talk more about this issue, if you want to, you know, kind of get involved with some of the work, you know, that I’m doing for my project at the Council, if you have thoughts about this, you have your contacts at CFR through the Young Professionals group. And they’ll know how to reach me. So I hope you’ll all be part of this kind of movement to give you guys some news and information and connections in the way that you’re looking for, if you have any ideas. 

DUFFY: Also go to—subscribe for her Substack. (Laughter.) 

LABOTT: Yeah. Both of them.  

DUFFY: That’s right. Exactly.  

LABOTT: Yeah.  

DUFFY: With that, as you all know, CFR cares a great deal about punctuality. It was a hard lesson for me to learn when I got here, but, you know, I’m learning it. We have a half an hour for a reception. It’s the year of our lord 2025, y’all, you deserve a drink. (Laughter.) So you can go outside, get some drinks. I think we can—I don’t, Andreas, can you hang out for a little bit?  

SANDRE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s Italian wines, right? 

DUFFY: Yes. We’re going to—we’re going to hang out. If you want to find us, we’re all very friendly. You can ask Andreas where he bought his socks. Thank you all so much for coming and spending your time with us. Thank you for being you. It is so amazing to see the future leaders. I feel very lucky that you’re going to be in those positions. Thank you to everyone who joined us online. And thanks, as ever, to our CFR team for helping support this. Let’s go get some wine. (Applause.) 

(END) 

This is an uncorrected transcript.