There are ways to curb fake news on social networks, so why aren’t we using them?

Two completely unrelated news stories about social networks: first: Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro decreeing a ten-day block on X, accusing Elon Musk of inciting “hatred, civil war and death.”

Secondly, evidence compiled by The Wall Street Journal shows that a large number of TikTok accounts created outside the United States are being coordinated to launch all kinds of fake news in the run up to the US elections in November and ahead of the Democratic Party convention this month.

Over recent years, social networks have been used to try to manipulate elections by spin doctors and foreign governments to boost support for parties or candidates who favor their interests.

The problem we increasingly face is how to distinguish the legitimate use of social networks to denounce political power with the non-genuine efforts coordinated by foreign governments or actors of other kinds. This is a clear case of I know it when I see it, even if there are no clearly defined parameters, such as the well-known US judge who tried to define obscenity.

The difference between grassroots campaigns, which are genuinely popular and simply use a social network as they could use any other means, and so-called non-genuine campaigns, in which there is a…