Invisible Influence: Faux Media, AI Opacity and Information Integrity with Lisa Main
On this episode of Technology & Security, Dr Miah Hammond-Errey is joined by Lisa Main, founder of Main Bureau and a former fellow at the Oxford Reuters Institute. What happens to a democracy when people can no longer agree on what’s real? Lisa explains why the most dangerous influence is the kind nobody can see, from faux media pages that mimic mainstream outlets to accurate content recycled without context across hundreds of Facebook pages.
The conversation examines why AI chatbots and recommendation systems are opaque, breaking the traceable line between a claim and its evidence, and why trust in media institutions is in free fall. Lisa explains why we can’t fact-check our way out of the problem and makes the case for a full stack of defences: transparency in algorithms and advertising, accountable institutions and a sustainable model for quality journalism, so the burden of verification doesn’t fall on individual users. The episode closes with advice for leaders on thinking in information supply chains rather than content, and what a healthy information environment could look like in ten years.
Lisa Main is a journalist with two decades in newsrooms and award-winning investigations from Sydney, Washington and the Middle East. She helped build ABC Fact Check and the ABC-produced Defending Democracy with former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and now advises executives on what happens when narratives become weapons.
Lisa Main on invisible influence: how faux media and AI opacity undermine information integrity, and what leaders must do about it.
