As the 2024 election season approaches, a rising tide of conspiracy theories, deep fakes, and misinformation poses a serious threat to the democratic process. While propaganda, lying politicians, and deceptive political ads are nothing new, digital media makes it easier and faster to distort and disseminate misleading information. Join California magazine’s Pat Joseph in conversation with UC Berkeley Professor Hany Farid, whose lab has pioneered the field of digital forensics to authenticate media in the age of increasingly credible fake news.

Hany Farid holds a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley. He is a member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Lab, Berkeley Institute for Data Science, Center for Innovation in Vision and Optics, Development Engineering, and Vision Science Program and a senior faculty advisor for the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. His research focuses on digital forensics, forensic science, misinformation, image analysis, and human perception. Farid, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.