Dr. Yaser Bishr is the Executive Director of Digital at Al Jazeera Media Network. Yaser is leading the Network’s transformation as a global digital media player. Prior to Al Jazeera, Yaser was Chief strategist and business development Director at Lockheed Martin, based in the Washington D.C. Area with remit to lead the transformation of its intelligence and cyber business form government focused to commercial. Yaser has 21 years’ experience as software architect and engineer, entrepreneur and academic. Prior to joining Lockheed, Yaser had successfully co-founded and told several startups in location based services and social media analytics in Germany and in he US. Yaser holds an MBA from Duke University, an MSc and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Presentation title: The War for Influence: Are We Ready?

1. The War for Influence – Are
you Ready?
Dr. Yaser Bishr
Executive Director Digital, Al Jazeera Media Network
@yaserbi

2. 14 Digital
Properties
30 Million
Visitors
+80 Social
Media
Accounts
+400 Staff

3. Loyal Audience
Business
Operation
s
Content
Production
Publishing &
Distribution
Product
Development
Innovation
Data Science
Audience Dev
& Distribution
Jetty
Contrast VR
Short &
Interactive Docs
Data
Journalism
& Viz
News
Gathering
Jetty
Contrast VR
Third party
content
In Depth
Video Unit

4. Amid the Digital rush
We failed our audience
We left vulnerable citizens behind

5. 1. The Algorithm

6. Our audience has become
slave to algorithms

9. Algorithms
amplify the
confirmation
bias

10. US Elections
confirmation bias

11. 2. Weaponizing News

12. One Way news
publishing/broadcasting
are over

13. Social bots are sophisticated
and menacing.
Their presence can endanger
online ecosystems as well as
our society.

15. 79 million American
don’t know that Earth
revolves around the Sun
National Science Foundation

16. 22 million American think
that chocolate milk comes
from brown cows
Innovation center of US dairy

17. Russian meddling in
the US elections

19. Italian
Elections
Fighting for
mindshare

20. • Understanding that algorithms
like organic
• Create thousands of fake
accounts pointing to content
published on major platforms
• Amplify your message using a
retweet bot network
• Drive audience from social
accounts to your site
• Apply traditional SEO tricks
Micro Targeting

21. 21st century warfare
News are being weaponized
Are we ready?
Is it time to view some content as
weapons?
Should access to weaponizing tools
be given to good actors and denied
from bad ones?
Do we in the content business want
to be part of this fight?

22. Reporting truth to citizens is not sufficient anymore
We should also make sure they received the truth

23. No Citizen should be left behind
Thank you