Interview with Ahmed Baba on The Impact of Social Media Rollbacks on Misinformation and Digital Gerrymandering

Feeling a little overwhelmed with the news and information overload recently? Us too. 

So we took action to break through some of the noise.

We recently sat down with Ahmed Baba – friend of FGA, journalist, entrepreneur and mis- and disinformation expert – to help us navigate through recent social media rollbacks, digital gerrymandering, checking our own biases, and how to prioritize balance in our activism. 

(This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)

Tell us about yourself, what you do, and how you became interested in journalism.

I'm a journalist, an entrepreneur, I've worked in tech. I write a newsletter Ahmedbaba.news, where I document this authoritarian hell ride we're on currently. I started doing disinformation lectures for college students and K through 12. I make some cable news appearances to try to break down what's going on. Initially, I was one of the first people to write about Project 2025. 

What has been happening with free speech, freedom of the press, and the various forms of censorship under this administration? What does this mean for the public’s distrust in news media? 

I would say the free speech landscape is pretty precarious right now – the threats to the media, targeting protesters by deeming certain protests illegal. Then, if we talk social media, obviously, the Mark Zuckerberg rollbacks, where he's rolled back content moderation. They're saying it's under the guise of free to speech but what it's really doing is enabling more harassment. Kicking the AP (Associated Press) out of the press pool, things like that.

Pew reported that about 1 in 5 Americans are getting their news from influencers and social media.  What does this mean for the increasing number of people who get their news this way? 

What we're seeing now is the decentralization of media. Gone are the days of the Big Three. We had ABC, NBC, CBS, local and national papers, where everyone kind of had the same set of facts. And then we go into the internet age. We get the social media era and anyone can just post. There are positives to that, but on the other side, there's a lot of disinformation and nefarious bad faith actors that will just push blatant lies with the intent to deceive us. We're seeing that play out today. Americans are a lot more misinformed because they all have their own individualized algorithmic realities, and they don't really know a lot of the time what's real and what's fake.

How do we fight that? How do we use that tactic for good? 

Checking our own biases, trying to make sure we're in control of our algorithms by recognizing when we're being manipulated. Unfortunately, as we speak, the Department of Education is being gutted. My usual fix for this is media literacy education, which we're seeing at the state level with New Jersey and California, for example. So hopefully, leaning on states to give it to children at a younger age. People need to make the truth entertaining.

What specific content moderation policies have been rolled back, and why?

The most recent and perhaps most wide-ranging ramifications come from the META rollback, where Zuckerberg announced that he was going to roll back fact-checking to opt for a community note model similar to Twitter's. He also rolled back auto-flagging of hate speech and his hate speech policy.

We see Twitter under Musk changed into a right-wing platform where disinformation is elevated. We saw that during the hurricanes in the fall, people were more fearful of reaching out to FEMA  for help. We saw the real-world impacts there. And I bring that up because oftentimes this information is seen as abstract, but it impacts people directly.

Who benefits from these rollbacks? 

People who want to profit off of these lies. So, for example, on Twitter, if you have a blue check now, you can monetize your views. If you want outrage bait, if you want to spread misinformation, you can monetize that. You already have an algorithm that incentivizes outrage bait, and you have moderation guidelines that enable disinformation; you're creating a disinformation industrial complex. It sounds dark when you get into it, and it almost feels a little powerless. But I did just come back from Selma. People have faced a lot more with a lot less. Even in the midst of studying all this stuff, I'm still optimistic. 

How do these social media rollbacks play into the Project 2025 playbook? 

They really want to stifle dissent. As much as people think they don't care, they care about public opinion. They want to keep the people at bay and buy into their propaganda. They want to fill the government with their loyalists and then continue all these other agenda items. And in order to do that, they need public support, or else they're gonna lose everything less than two years from now.

What is digital gerrymandering, and how does it differ from traditional gerrymandering? 

Everyone has their individualized algorithm now, their individualized reality. You're getting all the stuff to reinforce your views. Sequestering people in these partisan digital ecosystems further enhances the physical world of gerrymandering. That's again why I always go back to connecting with people in the real world on non-political topics, because that's how you build trust. Everyone's going to get their own partisan slop from the internet in their own silo, so how do we break that silo is really the question of our time.  

How do digital gerrymandering and mis- and disinformation all play into each other?

Now there is a direct pipeline. Instead of just a mailbox or a door knocker coming to tell you how to vote, you're getting bombarded constantly all day.

Voter suppression is an information tool as well as a physical one. The idea that your vote doesn't matter – that's what Russia pushed heavily in 2016 to black communities – is a form of voter suppression.

As activists, we always feel like we want to do more. What’s the best way to achieve that balance?

I would say just stop being hard on yourself, you're gonna burn out. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Respect your own process and your own time ... your own time commitments. I was always on the hustle mentality before, but I've really learned over time, balance is the key. Because if you're happier, you'll do higher quality work and you actually get more results with less.

Where can people find you to follow your journalism?

My newsletter is the best way, Ahmedbaba.news. I do about two to three articles a week. I post analysis of where we are and it's not all doom. So if you want a more sane, clear eyed look at what's going on that's not just "we're all gonna die," then you could give me a follow, and we'll try to get through this together. We're gonna get through it, and I think we'll get through it stronger at the end of all of this. That's my hope. And we'll only get there if we believe we can. 

You can read and subscribe to Ahmed’s newsletter at Ahmedbaba.news and follow him on TikTok and Instagram!