The Challenge of Regulating Misinformation Online

Abstract

The intentional spread of false information holds significant offline and online harms and can have lasting detrimental illness, political, and social repercussions. Recent studies report a rise of falsehood, propaganda, and more, which especially spread across social networks. Every day millions of people face millions of societal issues, such as violence, discrimination, hunger, or other health-related problems. The digital revolution has bred two types of major challenges revolving around misinformation - the multifold ways misinformation manifests and the various avenues misinformation takes. Its existence predates social networks but the online environment is found fertile ground for misinformation. They facilitate the creation and propagation of false information and have disinhibition over distribution. The colossal scale of the content received is disseminated every second, and the distribution of misinformation is virtually free to bear effects. The faceted implications of the information disorder have been realised by politicians. This complex set of issues is often approached from a variety of perspectives.  Some put the emphasis on policies and regulations, and different calls for new media literacy and critical approaches to news, while others simply debunk fake news, warning about threats to freedom of expression and curbs to a healthy public sphere.

Keywords: Misinformation, Regulation, Online Harm, Social Networks, Propaganda, Media Literacy, Information Disorder, Freedom Of Expression.