Disinformation: How Social Media Shapes the 2024 Election

Eric Ebenstein is a Senior Director of Public Policy at TikTok where he is responsible for US strategic policy initiatives and government affairs at the federal, state and international levels. He has more than a decade of experience working on regulatory and policy issues for technology companies.

Prior to joining TikTok, Eric was Head of North America Public Policy at DJI–the world’s leading civilian drone company. During his tenure, he led DJI’s advocacy efforts for regulatory and legislative issues on the federal and state level as well as internationally for Mexico and Canada. Before this, Eric was at POET, a sustainable energy company where he built the state Government Affairs team and mandate. He also served as Chief of Staff for Government Relations at Hewlett Packard where he advised on the North American government affairs program.

Eric holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Lehigh University, from which he graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa and a Juris Doctor degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He is based in TikTok’s Washington, DC office and lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and two children.

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Yosef Getachew is a Senior Policy Counsel at Reset.Tech where he supports programmatic work in the United States to help shape policies and regulations that safeguard digital rights and mitigate platform business practices that cause public harm. Yosef works with Reset’s partners to develop legal, policy, and corporate accountability strategies to combat digital threats to democracy. His work focuses on data privacy, transparency, artificial intelligence, content moderation, and other issues. Prior to joining Reset, Yosef served as the Media and Democracy Program Director for Common Cause where he led strategic campaigns to educate and engage the public and policymakers on critical reforms needed to advance an open and accessible media ecosystem that supports democracy.

Megan Shahi is the director of Technology Policy at American Progress. She has extensive experience across the U.S. public and private sectors and has spent the majority of her career promoting transparency and accountability inside some of the world’s most influential social media companies. She is deeply passionate about enacting smart and future-proof technology regulation in the United States and positively influencing the intersection of technology and public policy.

Prior to joining American Progress, Shahi worked at Meta, Instagram, and Twitter, where she advocated for user-choice functionality and control, wrote substantial platform policies, and shaped product strategies to safeguard social media users from both real world and online harm. She was a crisis manager in Meta’s first-ever U.S. election “War Room” in 2018, which worked to combat misinformation and inauthentic behavior. Shahi also architected Instagram’s product and content policies for the launch of its short-form video product—Reels—and guided Twitter’s strategy to comply with the European Union’s Digital Services Act. She helped each organization balance policy, safety, and regulatory interests with profit, growth, and engagement incentives to promote safe expression for global user bases.

Before her time working in the technology industry, Shahi served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Office of International Affairs and the Office of Domestic Finance, where she specialized in Western Hemisphere economic policy and domestic financial inclusion, respectively. She began her career in public service at the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Shahi hails from the San Francisco Bay Area and is a graduate of The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Kendall Kosai is the Director of Policy for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Western Division, overseeing legislative advocacy and policy for ten states on the West Coast. His portfolio includes leading a comprehensive legislative strategy, supporting field offices in key political issues, engaging with elected officials, and strengthening the organization’s civic engagement efforts. Since starting at ADL, Kendall has led the passage of numerous state-level legislation addressing issues of social media transparency, online hate and harassment, hate crimes, support for victims of hate, domestic extremism, and symbols of terror.

Prior to his current role, Kendall was the Associate Regional Director for the ADL’s Pacific Northwest region, Deputy Director for OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates, and a Senior Reporter at the North American Post.

Kendall is a Washington State Commissioner on Asian Pacific American Affairs, appointed by Governor Jay Inslee in 2021 where he currently serves on the Executive Committee the 2^nd Vice Chair.  He is the President Emeritus of White River Buddhist Temple and a member of the US-Japan Council. In 2023, he was recognized as a 40 Under 40 by the Puget Sound Business Journal. He is a proud fourth generation Japanese American native to the Pacific Northwest and is a graduate of the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Minor in Japanese Language.

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