How to fight disinformation if none really cares?
date
Jan 6, 2025
slug
2025-how-to-fight-disinformation-if-none-really-cares
status
Published
tags
disinformation
misinformation
society
regulation
Policy
type
Post
summary
Despite high concern about disinformation in the EU, societal priorities lean towards short-term digital gratification. Can society endure losing its addiction to prevent more chaos?
More than 80% of European Union citizens declare themselves "very concerned about disinformation" in their countries. This staggering number should command, at the very least, voters' support for government spending to tackle the issue. However, beyond the crippling debt levels across most of the continent's economies, audiences seem unwilling to give up their short-term digital gratifications. After all, how could you spend your day without knowing what Rihanna had for breakfast?
This is no laughing matter. Many people frame concerns about disinformation as an attack on freedom of speech—and in some ways, it is. But let's examine the historical context. Why was freedom of speech enshrined in the legal corpus of the UK and EU? It emerged when authoritarian governments were actively suppressing public expression. Moreover, it was established when reality was viewed as more objective, and few imagined a world where people would deliberately spread falsehoods to advance their agenda. This goes beyond ego-driven presidential behavior. People frequently spread misinformation. While lying isn't new, the digital age has removed traditional constraints on its spread (in the past, chronic liars would lose credibility—or at least they used to)
History has brought us to a surreal situation: polarization has created such hostility toward those with different views that truth matters less than social validation. Professional media continues to lose its appeal, while people—struggling to cope with an increasingly troubled society—find comfort in their manipulated social media timelines, avoiding the anxiety of wars and economic hardships. In a world of infinite information, attention has become the most valuable asset, with no rules governing who captures it first. Populists and tech giants understand this dynamic well—it's the foundation upon which the disinformation economy operates. All algorithms in the world of content have been adjusted to follow the logic that the more clicked is the best, so it’s likelier to generate more interest, but the logic is flawed. Otherwise, James Joyce’s Ulysses (and other masterpieces) would be forgotten forever.
Is there a way for a society that disregards reality to avoid descending into war or dystopia? No. The choices societies make, good or bad, shape their future. Both ends of the political spectrum receive their daily dose of confirmation bias through a complex, unbalanced, and unregulated system. Any meaningful intervention by authorities would require a complete reset of this system. Elon Musk shouldn't be allowed to abuse his position to promote his preferred worldview—X needs to be shut down, not merely silenced, until it can prove it operates safely (Musk's freedom of speech complaints are nonsense). Google, Meta, and TikTok derive massive revenues from this digital Wild West. Conspiracy theorists who once operated in underground networks now command global audiences. Elected authorities, meant to regulate what's permissible, find themselves powerless against vast international networks that exploit legal loopholes.
We live in an irresponsible society—we elect irresponsible authorities and act as irresponsible customers of companies focused solely on their next quarter's revenues. While the disinformation malaises are often associated with the extreme right, this lack of maturity spans across the entire opinion spectrum. Just as we claim to want green energy while refusing to give up our cars, we show no willingness to disconnect from the disinformation economy's power players. This is why Peter Thiel's mantra that "competition is for losers" proves as fundamentally capitalist as Das Kapital. We aren't truly customers of Google or Meta—we lack real alternatives in markets dominated by giants. Though this might ease our conscience as enablers of a system that erodes democracy from within, it's insufficient. Meaningful change won't emerge from tweets or cancel culture.