What to do about disinformation
In the digital age, the echoes of truth and falsehood reverberate with increasing intensity. Each click, share and retweet amplifies narratives, shaping perceptions and moulding realities. Yet amid this cacophony of voices, some pressing questions emerge. Whose narrative do we trust? And at what cost?
Social media platforms such as X, once celebrated as democratising forces, are under ever more scrutiny. The challenge isn’t just about rogue posts or unchecked algorithms. It reflects a deeper malaise, rooted in societal distrust, exacerbated by business models and perpetuated by reactive policies. The ramifications of disinformation spill on to the streets with tangible, often devastating real-world consequences.
These processes were already under way in 2014, when I founded the open-source investigative group Bellingcat. Having spent two years writing about the conflict in Syria, I understood that pooling knowledge and expertise online was a way not only to address disinformation directly, but to democratise the process of investigation itself.
Now, nearly a decade on, the problem is on a different scale. But there are solutions available — if we are prepared to put them into practice.