Reboot in the News

What happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was the culmination of years of conspiracy theories and falsehoods. Some say the threat of another such uprising remains as we continue to live in a digital “echo chamber” — one designed to show us the world how we want to see it with a digital wall of algorithms between us and information from another perspective. 

Disinformation and misinformation can make us emotional and angry and can even lead to violence. So how do we learn to recognize that and better assess the information we are flooded with?

Disinformation expert and critical thinking advocate Helen Lee Bouygues talks about the power and the dangers of dis- and misinformation in a hyper-polarized world and how we can improve our critical thinking skills in these uncertain times.

Many of the people who took part in violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 said they believed the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. Some experts have said the riots were fueled by conspiracy theories.

Helen Lee Bouygues is the founder of the Reboot Foundation, an organization focused on promoting critical thinking. She’s a fake news expert and she spoke to ABC NewsRadio’s Thomas Oriti.

Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building on Wednesday (January 6) to protest the outcome of the November 3 presidential election on the day the US Congress was slated to ratify Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.

Speaking on India Today’s special show Newstrack with Rahul Kanwal, Reboot President Helen Lee Bouygues weighed in on the decisions by Twitter and Facebook to ban Donald Trump from their platforms.

Teachers often tell their students that there is no such thing as a bad question. It’s true of course—students should never be embarrassed to ask a question. At the same time, however, it is possible to learn to ask better questions.

Unfortunately, questioning is a skill that is not emphasized enough in classrooms. Indeed, one of the pillars of critical thinking—a set of skills that is more valuable now than ever—is the capacity to formulate and ask questions. 

Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter have ramped up efforts to combat misinformation surrounding the election. Is it too little, too late?

Reset checks in with two experts.

• Sheera Frenkel, New York Times reporter on cybersecurity

• Helen Lee Bouygues, a misinformation expert and President of the Paris-based Reboot Foundation

When Helen Lee Bouygues ’95’s daughter needed to research King Francis for a school project, the 7-year-old didn’t turn to either of the two books about him sitting right in her room. 

She asked to borrow a computer and went straight to Wikipedia.

“That got me thinking about how children gather information,” says Bouygues. “For her, it was about expediency and being faster, but that has implications around how children learn.”