Niall (Neil) Ferguson

speaker

315 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 23 Jul

Niall (Neil) Ferguson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Call Me Back - with Dan Senor · AI is Activating Antisemites Left and Right - with Niall Ferguson · 23 Jul 2026 podcast

But who might have an interest in sowing this kind of discord in the United States and elsewhere?

It is certainly plausible that foreign governments hostile to the United States have played a part in promoting this kind of content.

This was a debate about TikTok that has somewhat faded from the headlines.

But given that the parent company is Chinese, you could have certainly made a case that somebody was working the algorithm to promote anti-Israel content and pro-Palestinian content after October 7th.

There was at least some circumstantial evidence to support that, though the company has consistently denied it.

We've just read about the role the Cuban government has played for decades in trying to promote ideological division.

We know the Soviets did it in their day, but they didn't have algorithmic media.

They never really got very far with their psychological operations.

But I think it's pretty clear that Chinese Communist Party psychological operations, Russian troll farms, and others are playing a part here.

This whole debate got greatly confused in the wake of the 2016 election by the desire of many people on the American left to exaggerate the extent of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

This led, of course, down many rabbit holes.

What was never, I think, disproved was that Russians were certainly trying to get toxic content onto Facebook in the United States.

And there is absolutely no doubt that many of the bots out there are Russian origin or Russian-funded troll farms outside Russia.

So I think this is part of what makes the phenomenon we're describing so concerning.

The network platforms have created engines that can be instrumentalized by hostile foreign powers and non-government actors hostile to the United States.

in order to amplify divisive messages.

We know this is going on.

You know this is going on because you've seen it yourself.

X, as we now call Twitter, is absolutely alive with bots.

And if you comment on the Russia-Ukraine war in a pro-Ukrainian way, they'll come to get you.

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