Digital Misinformation: Phenomenon flourishes online and regulators are acting worldwide

Globaldata’s Digital Misinformation: Phenomenon flourishes online and regulators are acting worldwide report offers detailed coverage of the multiple key issues related to digital misinformation, online platforms spreading misinformation, among others.

Misinformation encompasses a broad spectrum of cases where the underlying purpose is either malicious (so-called disinformation) or simply due to inaccuracy or honest mistakes. Disinformation is false information intended to mislead or harm a person, a community, an organization, or a country, for example, by a foreign state to influence elections or extremist groups to incite violence. As an example, the European Commission`s 2018 report on disinformation describes “high-risk disinformation techniques.” These are methods used by foreign states or domestic groups to “undermine the political process in the European Member States and the European Union through various forms of malicious fabrications, infiltration of grassroots groups, and automated amplification techniques.”

The report covers a comprehensive summary of digital misinformation from an expert’s perspective. Analyse the increasing focus on governments to hold social media companies responsible for the contents they publish.

View our free report to gain more insights on the key trends in digital misinformation mentioned below:

• Content-shaping algorithms: Facebook’s News Feed, Twitter’s Timeline, and YouTube’s recommendation engine are all examples of algorithms that determine the content that individual users see online. Algorithms also determine what ads users should be shown and when. These algorithms have learned to prioritize content with a greater prior engagement
• COVID-19 has been a driving factor: The COVID-19 pandemic has been fertile ground for fake news and the exploitation of public fear. In February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general said “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic.” Big Tech companies have taken a more active role in policing misinformation as a result of COVID-19
• Governments are increasingly concerned: A consensus is emerging that governments should hold social media companies responsible for the content they publish, as it can encourage anti-social and criminal behavior
• Micro targeting is used by a number of actors: According to a US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, Russia’s Internet Research Agency used digital personalization techniques to interfere in the 2016 US presidential elections
• Bad bots can be used to push an agenda: Bots are autonomous programs on a network that can interact with systems or users. On social media, bots can impersonate real people, for example, by automatically writing messages. Multiple bots acting together can create a buzz around a person, product, or topic and push a particular point of view or agenda

Leverage our free report for more detailed insights on Digital Misinformation.