This episode hosts Erez Levin to examine the shifting boundaries of acceptable public speech and what this reveals about the health of modern democratic societies. The conversation explores his central argument that liberal democracies depend not only on formal legal frameworks, but also on informal social guardrails, shared moral taboos that limit the public acceptability…
Erez Levin is an advertising technologist and former Google employee whose work focuses on the intersection of digital media systems, online advertising, and the health of public discourse. He has become a vocal critic of the incentive structures underpinning the modern attention economy, particularly the way engagement-driven platforms can amplify polarising and sensational content at…
Democracies are judged by their visible institutions. Elections, constitutions, courts, legislatures and a free press are treated as the cornerstones upon which democratic systems stand. When coming to assess democratic health, they tend to focus on voter turnout, constitutional protections, judicial independence, or the conduct of political leaders. Many of the rules that sustain democratic…
Anja Shortland is Professor of Political Economy at King’s College London, where she studies private governance in some of the world’s most complex and hostile markets, including kidnapping, piracy, fine art theft, antiquities, and ransomware. Her work explores how people trade, negotiate, and create systems of order in environments where formal state enforcement is weak…
For years, disinformation has been framed primarily as a political or media problem, associated with election interference, bot networks, and foreign influence campaigns. It is often treated as something external to core systems. It is portrayed as an issue for platforms, regulators, or communications teams to manage. Yet this framing obscures a more complex and…
Professor Simon Grima is the Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, a professor, and Head of the Department of Insurance and Risk Management at the University of Malta. He is also a professor in the University of Latvia’s Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, and a visiting professor at UNICATT Milan and…
Written by Elisa Garbil – 29.09.2025 When Bashar al-Assad fell in late 2024, many Syrians dared to imagine a future beyond authoritarianism and endless war. The dictator’s sudden departure sent a wave of relief across the country, and for a fleeting moment, optimism seemed to outweigh fatigue. Yet the early glow of freedom quickly dimmed. By mid-2025,…
Coordinated and Produced by Elisa Garbil Today Dominic Bowen hosts Broderick McDonald on the podcast to discuss the future of Syria. They dive into the different external actors and their interests, the challenges that the new government of Syria is facing, the fine line of institutional reform and unity, the need for inclusion of the minority groups, what the impact…
Broderick McDonald is a Research Fellow at Kings College London’s XCEPT Research Programme and a Research Associate the Oxford Emerging Threats Group. Prior to this, he served as an Advisor to the Government of Canada and was a Fellow with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). Broderick’s writing and commentary has appeared in The New York…
The International Risk Business Leaders Can’t Ignore in OpenAI’s New ChatGPT 5 Release When OpenAI rolled out GPT-5 to all ChatGPT users on 07 August, it wasn’t just another AI press cycle; it was a board-level signal. The model now sits in front of roughly 700 million weekly users, with OpenAI openly pitching it as…
