Hossein Derakhshan is an Iranian-Canadian writer and researcher, as well as a pioneer of blogging, podcasts and tech journalism in Iran. He is currently a research associate at the MIT Media Lab. He co-authored the report Information Disorder, commissioned by the Council of Europe and published by Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, on the theory and practice of what is known as ‘fake news’.
He spent six years in prison in Iran from 2008 for his weblog, which inspired an essay on the demise of blogs titled “The Web We Have to Save” and also one about television in prison titled “Television’s Reinvention and the Era of Post-Enlightenment”. He was also a keynote speaker at the Republica 2016 where he spoke about “Post-Web Internet: Is This (The Future) of Television?”
His current research is focused on the future of journalism, as well as the theory and socio-political implications of digital and social media. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Wired, Libération, Die Zeit, El Pais and Corriere Della Sera.
