Elon Musk has more than 218 million followers on X, the social media platform he owns. Donald Trump’s personal X account has more than 101 million followers. Robert F Kennedy’s personal account has more than 5.4 million followers.
In this interconnected world, where posts on X/Twitter inform posts across other social media platforms as well as mainstream media reports and wider public and political discourse, the threats posed by misinformation and disinformation cannot be overstated.
Below is an extract from Croakey Health Media’s pre-budget submission, which was submitted on 5 February, calling for the development, implementation and resourcing of a national strategy to tackle misinformation and disinformation.
We envisage that this would involve all levels of government and all sectors. We will have more to say about this, and invite Croakey readers and contributors to share your views on what this strategy might encompass.
Croakey Health Media statement
The instability, unreliability and hazardous state of our news and information systems, in Australia and globally, is a public health emergency that is undermining democracy, evidence-informed policy, and the safety, health and wellbeing of communities.
In the past month alone, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have warned that the increasing proliferation of misinformation and disinformation is an existential threat for humanity, and that this will only increase as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more pervasive.
The WEF report – based on data collected before the United States election and before the latest developments undermining the safety of digital platforms – underscores the critical importance of tackling misinformation and disinformation.
The report says the accelerating spread of false or misleading information is amplifying other major risks facing the world, from State-based armed conflict to extreme weather events. There are many ways in which a proliferation of false or misleading content is complicating the geopolitical environment, says the report, including that it is a leading mechanism for foreign entities to affect voter intentions; it can sow doubt among the general public worldwide about what is happening in conflict zones; or it can be used to tarnish the image of products or services from another country.
The recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists report cites a range of existential risks facing the world, including the risk of nuclear war, the collapsing nuclear arms control process, the increasing impacts of climate change, emerging and re-emerging diseases, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, and related disruptive technologies that make the world more dangerous.
All of these dangers “are greatly exacerbated by a potent threat multiplier: the spread of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories that degrade the communication ecosystem and increasingly blur the line between truth and falsehood”.
In Australia, misinformation and disinformation are undermining support for many public health measures, including vaccination.
A recent Croakey investigation of the lessons learnt from the first five years of COVID underscores the importance of systemic efforts to address misinformation and disinformation.
Professor Linda Slack-Smith from the School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, told Croakey: “The standout lesson from the last five years is the role of misinformation and disinformation in significantly undermining confidence and trust in public health and the fact that this was/is being done actively in some cases (disinformation).”
Professor Slack-Smith added that: “Misinformation and disinformation can no longer be viewed simply as an academic nuisance, but rather they are a societal threat.”
So far as we have been able to ascertain, Australia does not have a nation-wide strategy to tackle misinformation and disinformation, involving actions across all portfolios and levels of government.
This is a shocking gap in our national preparedness for addressing the many challenges facing Australia, as a nation and a member of the global community – whether we are contemplating the next pandemic, climate disruption, efforts to achieve social and economic justice and self-determination for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, or diminishing social cohesion.
While there are individual initiatives, such as a playbook helping local government to respond to misinformation and disinformation, there is no strategic national response that is funded and implemented.
In this submission, we urge the Federal Government to act urgently to develop and implement a whole-of-government response to addressing the crisis in our news and information systems, as well as a coordinated approach across federal, state, territory governments and local governments.
This response could include systemic efforts to address misinformation and disinformation, including – but not limited to – efforts to support the growth and development of independent media, especially community-driven public interest journalism initiatives, with a focus on ‘news deserts’ (areas without local news media) and areas where there is a lack of diversity, or corporate dominance in the market.
We also recommend some straightforward policy initiatives that would greatly assist organisations like Croakey Health Media – which are committed to evidence-informed journalism – to remain sustainable, in the short and longer term.
See Croakey’s policy submissions, mostly on media policy and health
