Disinformation

Disinformation policy addresses the deliberate spread of false or misleading information — particularly through digital platforms — and government and private efforts to counter it. Disinformation is not new, but the digital age has transformed its scale, speed, and sophistication: social media algorithms reward emotionally engaging content regardless of accuracy, making false and sensational claims spread faster than corrections. Russia's Internet Research Agency conducted extensive influence operations targeting the 2016 U.S. election, as documented by the Senate Intelligence Committee — seeding divisive content on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to amplify existing political tensions. Generative AI has dramatically lowered the cost of creating convincing fake videos, audio, and text at scale, raising alarms about deepfakes in elections, financial fraud, and military disinformation. The EU's Digital Services Act (2022) requires large platforms to assess and mitigate risks from disinformation, while the U.S. has relied primarily on voluntary platform policies. A federally funded Disinformation Governance Board proposed in 2022 was shut down within weeks after intense political backlash framing it as a 'Ministry of Truth.' The tension between free speech principles and the harms of false information runs through every policy debate in this space. Media literacy — teaching citizens to evaluate sources and claims critically — is increasingly seen as a necessary complement to platform regulation and government action. Trust in news media has fallen to historic lows, which disinformation both causes and exploits.