#DFRLabCoffeeBreak is a video series meant to discuss how disinformation and digital change affect industries, policy making, and society with a community of experts, academics, and leaders from around the world.
Hopewell Chin’ono
Hopewell Chin’ono is an investigative reporter based in Zimbabwe. Through his freelancing and work with the BBC World Service, Chin’ono won various international awards including the 2008 CNN African Journalist of the Year Award and 2008 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Award.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
Toomas Hendrik Ilves served as the fourth President of the Republic of Estonia from 2006 to 2016. Ilves is an accomplished journalist and diplomat having worked for Radio Free Europe. He served as Estonian Ambassador to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico at the same time following Estonia’s restoration of its independence after the fall of the Soviet Union. He later became Estonia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Maria Ressa
Maria Ressa is CEO, co-founder, and journalist at Rappler, an independent Filipino online news outlet. Ressa has spent over twenty years as a journalist, reporting around the globe. However, in the last four years, Ressa has found herself the target of a coordinated campaign by Filipino president, Rodrigo Duterte and his followers in the Philippines. Most recently, Ressa was charged for “cyber libel” for an article published on Rappler in 2012. The catch? The law Ressa is charged with didn’t exist until 2015, nor was Ressa the writer or editor of the piece.
Aisha Abdool Karim
Aisha Abdool Karim is a journalist at the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. She discusses South Africa’s reaction to and plan for dealing with COVID-19 as well as disinformation that can lead average South Africans astray.
Heloisa Massaro
Heloisa Massaro is Head of Research for InternetLab, a Brazilian think tank focused on law, technology, and internet policy. She reveals how disinformation, much of which originates from President Jair Bolsonaro and his associates, has affected the country in the wake of COVID-19 and the country’s hastily put together bill meant to combat “fake news.”