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Dr. Samuel Woolley (assistant professor at The University of Texas at Austin)

Dr. Samuel Woolley

assistant professor at The University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Samuel C. Woolley is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and in the School of Information--both at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the project director for propaganda research at the Center for Media Engagement (CME) at UT. He is also currently a research associate at the Project for Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University.
Woolley’s research on the use of social media in attempts to manipulate public opinion has revealed the ways in which a wide variety of political groups in the United States and abroad have leveraged tools such as bots and trending algorithms and tactics of disinformation and trolling in efforts to control information flows online.
His latest book, The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth, was released in January 2020 by PublicAffairs (US) and Octopus/Endeavour (UK). It explores the ways in which emergent technologies--from deep fakes to virtual reality--are already being leveraged to manipulate public opinion, and how they are likely to be used in the future. He proposes strategic responses to these threats with the ultimate goal of empowering activists and pushing technology builders to design for democracy and human rights.
Woolley is the founding director of the Digital Intelligence Lab, a research and policy oriented project at the Institute for the Future. Before this he served as the director of research at the National Science Foundation and European Research Council supported Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Guardian and on PBS’ Frontline, BBC’s News at Ten, and ABC’s Today. His work on computational propaganda and bots has been presented to members of the U.S. Congress, the U.K. Parliament, NATO, and others. His Ph.D. is in Communication from the University of Washington.