Articles By
Alexei Abrahams
Commentary
Repress/redress: What the “war on terror” can teach us about fighting misinformation
Alexei Abrahams and Gabrielle Lim
Misinformation, like terrorism, thrives where trust in conventional authorities has eroded. An informed policy response must therefore complement efforts to repress misinformation with efforts to redress loss of trust. At present, however, we are repeating the mistakes of the war on terror, prioritizing repressive, technologically deterministic solutions while failing to redress the root sociopolitical grievances that cultivate our receptivity to misinformation in the first place.