The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread

by Cailin O'Connor

We currently have a legislative framework that limits the ability of certain industries—tobacco and pharmaceuticals—to advertise their products and to spread misinformation. This is because there is a clear public health risk to allowing these industries to promote their products. We also have defamation and libel laws that prohibit certain forms of (inaccurate) claims about individuals. We think these legislative frameworks should be extended to cover more general efforts to spread misinformation. In an era of global warming, websites like Breitbart News and Infowars are more damaging to public health than Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man were in the past, and they should be treated as such.67 In many ways, the United States is behind Europe on this front. Like the US and UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and other European nations have been targeted by fake news—often with alleged links to Russia.68 In 2015, the European Union created a specialized task force called East StratCom, with the express purpose of identifying strategies to combat fake news and propaganda.