TECH AND DEMOCRACY ACTIVIST

Combating extremism, polarization and anti-democratic behavior on- and offline.

 

Yaёl has spent over two decades combating extremism, polarization and anti-democratic behavior both on- and offline. She is currently a Senior Fellow at Cybersecurity for Democracy, working on policy solutions for how social media, AI-powered algorithms, and Generative AI affect political discourse, polarization, and democracy. Previously, she was Vice President at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center for Technology & Society (CTS), leading ADL’s efforts to hold tech companies accountable for the proliferation of hate and extremism on their platforms. She works with industry, governments, and civil society to push for a safer internet and technology that better serves the public.

 

Yaёl joined ADL in October 2022 after spending more than two decades protecting our democracy, including as an intelligence officer, diplomat, and White House advisor. She joined Facebook in 2018 as the head of global elections integrity for political ads, following several years as a vocal critic of the harms that social media has inflicted on democracy and societies worldwide. After leaving Facebook six months later, she spoke openly about the company’s inability to meet its responsibility to secure elections, and she has continued to push for changes in the tech industry.

 

Yaël also served as the Senior Advisor for Tech and Democracy at the Institute for Security and Technology in 2021-22, was a Future of Democracy Fellow at Berggruen Institute in 2021-22, a Researcher-in-Residence at Betalab in 2020-21, and a Visiting Fellow at Cornell Tech's Digital Life Initiative in 2019-2020, where she focused on technology's effects on discourse and democracy and taught a multi-university course on Tech, Media and Democracy. She was also an Adjunct Professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs in 2017-18.

 

Yaël has become a key voice and public advocate for transparency and accountability in tech, particularly where real-world-consequences affect democracy and societies around the world. See her 2020 mainstage TED talk on this subject.

 

Yaël has been published in numerous mainstream outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME, WIRED, Quartz and The Huffington Post, has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, BBC World News, CBS Sunday Morning, Bloomberg News, CBS News, PBS and C-SPAN, in policy forums, and on a number of podcasts. She earned an M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

 

Photo: On stage at Tech Open Air Berlin, 2017