i'm frank sesno affiliated with the george washington university school of public affairs, affiliated with the institute of data and democracy in politics which is presenting this event together with the international grand committee on disinformation. i will be your moderator and your timekeeper. i will continue this conversation with our distinguished panelists and guests. if you are a journalist joining us, feel free to put your question into the q&a field. i will try to incorporate any of those questions to our panel in a bit. social media platforms as we discussed are allowing unscrupulous actors to sell unsafe, illegal, and overpriced medical equipment during this pandemic. that is one of many issues that we see across the social media platforms. this one is not a new problem. social media platforms continue to allow these dangerous disinformation during covid 19 pandemic, and in so doing, they expose just how dangerous and how irresponsible this kind of behavior can be and the role they play and continuing to allow it. rampant conspiracy theories make , confusingon worse people