Wellesley W

On Wednesday, June 6th Panagiotis (Takis) T Metaxas, Professor of Computer Science at Wellesley, will join us for an evening discussion: Of course it's true, I saw it on the Internet: How and Why Fake News and Misinformation Propagate, and What to Do About It.

The Internet and Social Media have dramatically changed our lives and will continue to do so, not always in a good way. As we are using them daily to be informed and act on this information, they are affecting our perception of reality and our trust in Democracy. Why do they have such power and how can we make sure they can be used to support, not damage, our democratic institutions?

We'll start at 6:30pm with drinks and networking; the talk will commence at 7:00pm and will be followed by more drinks and networking. We'll end by 8:15.

The talk is free to Wellesley alums and students; we ask guests to pay £10 toward our costs.

The Wellesley Club UK will also host a small dinner with Professor Metaxas after the lecture. We have 16 places available; the cost of the meal will be £40. If you'd like to join the dinner, please sign up here. We will send meal options closer to the date of the event.

We hope to see you on June 6th!

The Wellesley Club UK Board

Professor Metaxas bio

Panagiotis T Metaxas
Wellesley CS, MA&S
Harvard CRCS
Faculty Director MK Albright Institute

I'm a Professor of Computer Science at Wellesley College, doing research on online social networks, multimedia programming, parallel computing, image dithering and CS education. My current projects involve studying the power of crowdsourcing and social networks, especially related to the prediction of political events, and in developing tools that support the privacy of the user while estimating the trustworthiness of the information the user receives.

I am currently the Faculty Director of the Albright Institute for Global Affairs.

I studied Mathematics at the University of Athens and Computer Science at Brown. I received my M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Dartmouth, and have been a visiting scientist at MIT, the Sydney University in Australia, and at Harvard.

I currently work in the Computer Science department at Wellesley College, where I founded and co-direct the Media Arts and Sciences program, and also at Harvard, where I am an Affiliate at the Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS). I am the Faculty Director of the Scholarly Communications Group that oversees the implementation of the Open Access Policy at Wellesley.

For more information, please see http://cs.wellesley.edu/~pmetaxas/

The Club continues to use its “CHOOSE YOUR OWN DUES” plan. (For some guidance, the range is normally between £5 and £50). All funds go directly towards the Club’s events such as Thanksgiving, communications, lectures, etc. Without your contribution through dues, we'd be unable to put on important events such as this one, or the Thanksgiving dinner. Please consider paying something toward annual dues when you register for this event. Thank you!

How and Why Fake News and Misinformation Propagate, and What To Do About It