Reintroducing Myself

Who I am and why I write this newsletter

Hello again from Kent Island on the Eastern Shore. It’s another beautiful weekend here. Yesterday, my friends and I hung out at a tiki bar and then went to watch a local band play at a place called the Jetty. One of my favorite games to play is to go through each band member and guess what their day job is.

This is me at the tiki bar yesterday.

I won’t lie; I’m struggling with a topic for today’s newsletter. I’ve been having difficulty concentrating and getting my head wrapped around everything. But, it did occur to me that many of you might not know much about me or why I am doing this, so I thought I would reintroduce myself so you knew my motivations and reasons for doing the work that I am doing.

I was born and grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Until I was seven, my family and I lived near Lambeau Field. We are huge Packer fans and are owners of the team. We love to hunt and fish and are a very outdoorsy family. We’re also huge Disney fans. I’m the oldest of three kids, single, and have lived in Washington, DC, for 20 years. (PS: Happy Father’s Day, dad!)

Careerwise, I started my journey post-college at the Republican National Committee in 2003. I worked in the communications department and ran the beginnings of an e-campaign department (as we called it those days.) I bounced around doing digital for various campaigns through the 2010 cycle and then joined Facebook.

At Facebook, my role evolved a lot over ten years. I started working with Republican candidates and elected officials on how to use the platform. In 2013, I pitched to the company that we should build an international team to help political figures use the platform and build a global elections strategy across the company. 

That work shifted a ton in the six and a half years I was doing it. We started small where I was building the election day reminders myself and begging and pleading for help across the company wherever I could get it. 

In 2015, the civic product team was created, and in 2017, the work shifted primarily to integrity work. By 2019, I was working closely with product teams to develop and deploy civic engagement and election integrity products, including political ads transparency features; developing and executing policies around elections; building the teams that support the government, political, and advocacy partners; working with policymakers on shaping the regulation of elections online, and serving as a spokesperson for the company about these issues. I was involved in this work in major elections for every country worldwide, including the United States, India, Brazil, the United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, the Philippines, and Mexico.

I’ve written in the past about my process in deciding to leave Facebook as well as how I mapped out my post-Facebook journey, so I won’t go into too much detail again here but to say that when deciding to go out on my own, I knew I wanted to keep working at the intersection of technology and democracy in the United States and around the world. I have three pillars that my work fits into:

1. Mentorship: I liked being a manager, and I love working with students, recent graduates, or anyone interested in this space, so I wanted to make sure a portion of my time when to do that.

2. Voice: When I left, I had this strong urge - that continues to this day - to write and create. I thought the public discussion of content moderation, elections, politics, speech, and others needed more nuance. I wanted to build up my own brand and thought leadership versus representing the company's point of view. My goal is to call balls and strikes as I see them. I would do some things differently if I could return in time. There are other decisions I’ll continue to defend. There was often no easy answer, and I can see why someone else would have made a different call. In writing this newsletter, I hope to give you a glimpse of those tradeoffs and decision-making processes.

3. Build: For the last pillar, I didn’t want just to be someone who talked about what should be done, but I wanted to help build the future of this work. This is why I enjoy the work at the Integrity Institute and with people at the platforms as they continue to work through these challenges.

To make this all happen, there really wasn’t a full-time job that would encompass all of this. The thought of a regular, full-time job didn’t appeal to me either. So I decided to put together a portfolio of projects with non-profit orgs like the Bipartisan Policy Center, Integrity Institute, and the International Republican Institute; traditional consulting through organizations like Duco Experts; and write this newsletter and, soon, produce a podcast. (PS: If you are interested in potentially doing something similar, you can check out a book by Christina Wallace called The Portfolio Life.)

I still have a lot that I want to share with the world. Not just my thoughts but the amazing work so many people are doing. I started the paid version of this newsletter in February with the hopes that I might be able to focus more of my time on doing this. If you upgrade, you’ll be supporting my time and my ability to bring in help. Right now, it’s just me putting these together twice a week on top of all my other jobs.

A final note. This work means a lot to me. The people who I’ve had the pleasure of working with mean a lot to me. This work is also hard. There’s a lot of valid criticism about hard decisions, but many involve impossible tradeoffs. I still get anxious about putting forward my thoughts to the public. I know I’ve hurt some people. Some people cheer me on. This tension is weighing heavily on me this morning. Sometimes I think it might be easier to put my head down and not say anything. But I also don’t want anyone else to define my story in this complicated journey. So, I keep writing and hope that in the long run, I will have done so with grace and honor.

Thank you for coming on this adventure with me. 

What I’m Reading

• TechPolicy.press: Will Open Source AI Shift Power from Big Tech? It Depends

• Governing.com: How AI Could Take Over Elections and Undermine Democracy

• FiveThirtyEight: 2024 Presidential Elections: Online Memes

• Campaigns and Elections: Streaming TV and the Political Market: From a Midterm Year to a Presidential

• Pew Research Center: Life on Social Media Platforms in Users' Own Words

• Brennan Center for Justice: How AI Puts Elections at Risk and Needed Safeguards

• Bloomberg Law: Deputy PM Dowden Says UK Will Host AI Summit in December

• Meta: Response to the recommendations the Oversight Board made in their Covid-19 misinformation Policy Advisory Opinion

Calendar

🚨NEW 🚨

• June 21, 2023 - Atlantic Council: Report Launch - Scaling Trust on the Web

• June 27, 2023 - SXSW Panel Picker Opens 

Topics to keep an eye on:

• Biden Administration POV on Texas and Florida laws

• Facebook 2020 election research 

• TV shows about Facebook - Doomsday Machine and second season of Super Pumped

• June 21, 2023 - Trump 18-month exclusivity term with Truth Social ends assuming he gives notice

• June 22 - Bolsonaro trial starts

• June 24 - June 30 - Aspen Ideas Festival

• June 24, 2023 – Sierra Leone election

• June 25, 2023 – Guatemala election

• July 10, 2023 - Trust and Safety Hackathon

• July 11-13, 2023 - TrustCon

• Mid-July - Code of practice on disinformation platform reports due

• July 2023 – Sudan election (likely to have further changes due clashes erupted mid-April, despite temporary humanitarian ceasefire,)

• July 23, 2023 – Cambodia election

• July 23, 2023 - Spain Election

• August 10 - 13, 2023 - Defcon

• August 23, 2023 - Zimbabwe Election

• August-2023 – Eswatini election

• August 23, 2023 - First GOP Presidential Primary Debate

• August - End of UK parliamentary session. Must pass Online Safety Bill by then.

• Mid-September: All Tech Is Human - Responsible Tech Summit NYC

• September 19, 2023 - UN General Assembly high-level debate begins

• September 27-29, 2023: Athens Democracy Forum

• September 28-29, 2023 - Trust & Safety Research Conference 

• TBD September: Atlantic Festival

• TBD September: Unfinished Live

• September 2023 – Bhutan election

• September 2023 – Tuvalu election

• September 9, 2023 – Maldives election

• September 28-29, 2023 - The Atlantic Festival

• September 30, 2023 – Slovakia election

• September 2023 – Rwanda election

• October 2023 – Oman election

• October 2023 Poland election

• October 8, 2023 – Pakistan election

• October 10, 2023 – Liberia election

• October 14, 2023 – New Zealand election

• October 22, 2023 – Switzerland election

• October 29, 2023 – Argentina election

• October 2023 – Gabon election

• October 2023 – Ukraine election

• Nov 14 - Book Release, Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets by Jeff Horwitz 

• November 15, 2023 - Aspen Cyber Summit

• November 20, 2023 – Marshall Islands election

• November 29, 2023 – Argentina election

• December 1-3, 2023: Build Peace 2023 Conference

• December 20, 2023 – Democratic Republic of the Congo election

• December 2023 –Togo election

• 2023 or 2024 – Peru election

• TBD – Dominica election

• TBD – Luxembourg election

• TBD – Myanmar election

• TBD – Spain election

• TBD – Gabon election

• TBD – Madagascar election

• TBD – Haiti election

• TBD – Libya election

• TBD – Singapore election

2024

• January 2024 – Bangladesh election 

• January 2024 – Finland election 

• January 13, 2024 – Taiwan election 

• February 4, 2024 – El Salvador election 

• February 4, 2024 – Mali election 

• February 14, 2024 – Indonesia election 

• February 25, 2024 – Senegal election 

• February 25, 2024 – Belarus election 

• March 17, 2024 – Russia election 

• March 31, 2024 – Ukraine election 

• April 10, 2024 – South Korea election 

• April 2024 – Solomon Islands election 

• April 2024 – Maldives election 

• May 5, 2024 – Panama election 

• May 19, 2024 – Dominican Republic election 

• June 2024 – Mongolia election 

• June 6-9, 2024 - EU Parliament Elections

• July 7, 2024 – Mexico election 

• July 15 - 18, 2024 - Republican National Convention

• August 19 - 22, 2024 - Democratic Convention, Chicago

• October 27, 2024 – Uruguay election 

• October 2024 – Mozambique election 

• October 2024 – Chad election 

• November 2024 – Guinea Bissau election 

• November 2024 – Moldova election 

• November 2024 – Romania election 

• November 5, 2024 – United States of America election 

• November 12, 2024 – Palau election 

• December 2024 – Croatia election 

• TBD – Algeria election 

• TBD – Austria election 

• TBD – Belgium election 

• TBD – Botswana election 

• TBD – Burkina Faso election 

• TBD – Chad election 

• TBD – Comoros election 

• TBD – Croatia election 

• TBD – Dominica election 

• TBD – Egypt election 

• TBD – Ethiopia election 

• TBD – Georgia election 

• TBD – Ghana election 

• TBD – Iceland election 

• TBD – India election 

• TBD – Iran election 

• TBD – Jordan election 

• TBD – Kiribati election 

• TBD – Kuwait election 

• TBD – Lithuania election

• TBD – Madagascar election 

• TBD – Mauritania election

• TBD – Mauritius election

• TBD – Montenegro election 

• TBD – North Korea election

• TBD – North Macedonia election

• TBD – Romania election 

• TBD – Rwanda election

• TBD – San Marino election

• TBD – Slovakia election 

• TBD – South Africa election

• TBD – South Sudan election

• TBD – Syria election 

• TBD – Tunisia election

• TBD – United States of America election 

• TBD – Uzbekistan election

• TBD – Venezuela election