Back to basics: Technofascism 101...

Back to basics: Technofascism 101 with Emile Dirks from the Citizen Lab

Activists Of Tech — The responsible tech podcast by Activists of Tech
S4 · E1
Sep 16, 2025
28:29

Episode notes

After Trump was elected and tech oligarchs like Elon Musk, an unelected person, started to get power in decision making at the White House, the topic of technofascism got very popular. But this political trend of leveraging technology to empower fascist ideologies is nothing new. A lot has been written about technofascism in the 21st century, but I wanted to go back to the basics: what is fascism before technology? How do fascist movements use technology to take power and what kind of power dynamic is created? How can we resist the rise of technofascism?

To answer these questions, I welcomed Dr Emile Dirks. Emile is a Senior Research Associate at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, where he explores Chinese politics and digital authoritarianism.

Created, hosted and produced by Mélissa M'Raidi-Kechichian.

Keywords

responsible tech
marginalized communities
technology
social justice
activism
democracy
tech and democracy
artificial intelligence
social media
privacy
china
fascism
technofascism