How Digital Disinformation Sows Hate, Hurts Democracy: QuickTake

Disinformation, now known as fake news, has tainted public discourse for centuries, even millennia. It’s been amplified in our digital age as a weapon of fearmongers, mob-baiters and election-meddlers to widen social fissures, subvert democracy and boost authoritarian regimes. Companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google are under pressure to take action.

It’s often defined as false content spread with the specific intent to deceive, mislead or manipulate. (That’s different from misinformation, which is erroneous but spread unintentionally.) Disinformation can take the form of legitimate-looking news stories, tweets, Facebook or Instagram posts, advertisements and edited recordings distributed on social media or by messaging app. A new worry is what are called deepfakes: video or audio clips in which computers can literally put words in someone’s mouth.