24-0701
Megan Shahi, Center for American Progress
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2024, 10.00 a.m.
Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Philosophicum, Raum P7
Jakob-Welder-Weg 18, 55128 Mainz
English
Free admission, no registration needed.
Aspen Institute Germany
Association of German-American Centers
Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies
This event is kindly supported by the Embassy of the United States of America.
Social Media has become an integral part to our political discourse: for many people, it is one of the main ways in which they interact with political campaigns, civil society organizations and even news coverage about the political sphere. Indeed, traditional and social media have become inseparably intertwined, constantly reacting to each other in the 24-hour news cyle. The political discourse all over the world, including the lead-up to the U.S. elections, has been majorly influenced by this system.
What are the new opportunities and pitfalls of political discourse online? How do the corporate interests of technology companies interact with the democratic processes that they host? What should be the role of regulators in this complex system?
Join our event to hear about the U.S. perspective on these topical questions.
is the director of Technology Policy at American Progress. She has extensive experience across the U.S. public and private sectors and has spent the majority of her career promoting transparency and accountability inside some of the world’s most influential social media companies. Prior to joining American Progress, Shahi worked at Meta, Instagram, and Twitter, where she advocated for user-choice functionality and control, wrote substantial platform policies, and shaped product strategies to safeguard social media users from both real world and online harm. She was a crisis manager in Meta’s first-ever U.S. election “War Room” in 2018, which worked to combat misinformation and inauthentic behavior.
Shahi also architected Instagram’s product and content policies for the launch of its short-form video product—Reels—and guided Twitter’s strategy to comply with the European Union’s Digital Services Act. She helped each organization balance policy, safety, and regulatory interests with profit, growth, and engagement incentives to promote safe expression for global user bases.
Before her time working in the technology industry, Shahi served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Office of International Affairs and the Office of Domestic Finance, where she specialized in Western Hemisphere economic policy and domestic financial inclusion, respectively. She began her career in public service at the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Shahi hails from the San Francisco Bay Area and is a graduate of The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.