Dismantling Disinformation, Part 1: What Can Governments Do to Fight Fake News?
How can governments fight back against disinformation without jeopardizing their citizens’ right to free speech?
This article is part of a series about how different groups can prevent the harmful effects of disinformation on a large scale. Hannah Kruglikov wrote an excellent guide on how individuals can identify and stop disinformation, which can be found here.
In the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, a Kremlin-backed agency spread disinformation online to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump. Now, there is evidence that other groups — both foreign and domestic — have employed similar tactics during this year’s election. Other countries have also fallen victim to disinformation. These attacks have had damaging effects, from instigating violent protests to possibly influencing the final results of elections. So, what can liberal democratic governments do to fight future attacks like these?
To maximize resilience to disinformation attacks, institutions must take a multifaceted approach. In advance of vulnerable moments like elections, they must take preemptive measures, then react immediately to realized attacks, and finally, work in the long term to ensure less successful future attacks.
Preemptively, governments should be aware of the moments when they are most vulnerable to disinfo attacks. Disinformation is more likely to have an impact during events like elections, censuses, transfers of power, or civil unrest. These are high-stakes periods when a lot of information is being exchanged, making it more difficult to determine what is and isn’t true. Necessary communications teams should be in place prior to these events.
When a vulnerable event approaches, governments should ensure that other institutions are prepared to handle a potential influx of fake news and disinformation. Crucially, they should reach out to social media companies to check that they have safeguards in place to control the spread of fake news. Governments can use their knowledge of potential threats to help sites become forums for legitimate discussion instead of for misleading vitriol.
Germany did this in the run-up to elections in 2017 and 2019, partnering with Facebook to help the site ban tens of thousands of fake accounts and implement tools to encourage a more informed electorate. By helping social media companies minimize the spread of disinformation, governments can avoid legislating fake news, a move which would likely be seen as censorship.
When an attack is discovered, governments should immediately be open about it. Confronted with reports of Russian cyber interference in 2016, President Obama’s administration was slow to react. After political disagreements about whether or not to issue a bipartisan condemnation of Russia, the administration decided not to act publicly, fearing that a public statement would be seen as partisan interference in the election.
This is the opposite of what governments should do. Delaying the release of vital information only provides more time for false narratives to grow and spread, ultimately making it harder to inform the public. Different parts of government should come together to publicly denounce the attacks and inform the public, regardless of partisan concerns. They should cite reliable sources from both inside and outside the government to build trust with citizens. Modern disinformation campaigns seek to erode citizens’ faith in institutions, so it is crucial that governments do all they can to be transparent and prove that they are worth being trusted.
In the long term, governments should improve social norms around spreading and consuming information on social media. They should ensure that media literacy is implemented into school curricula to help students identify untrustworthy news sources. Governments can also sponsor anti-fake news PSAs to encourage people to foster more careful habits online.
Ultimately, the number one priority for governments is improving the trust they share with their citizens. In 2018, the Malaysian government passed a law (which has since been repealed) punishing people with fines up to US$123,000 or up to six years of jail time for posting fake news online. Legislation like this implies that the government does not trust its population to share content responsibly, and opens the government up to accusations of censorship, further increasing distrust.
Instead of legislating what citizens can or cannot say online, governments must be creative and proactive in finding preemptive, immediate, and ongoing solutions to fake news. They must work with citizens and organizations to ensure that when disinfo strikes, the country is informed and ready.
In the next article in this series, we will take a closer look at what big tech companies can do to help fight disinformation attacks.
More from this series:
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