What Can We Do as Democracy’s Enemy—Disinformation—Gains Ground?

Deep change requires courage. So, with pounding hearts let us jump into this contentious arena.

Frances Moore Lappé for Common Dreams

It’s a crisis. America is now among 11 nations deemed most threatened by both mis-and disinformation.

Little wonder that almost 90% of us fear our country is on the “wrong track.” And, President-elect Trump has led the way with 492 suspect claims in just the first hundred days of his first presidency. Then, before the 2020 vote, in a single day he made 503 false or misleading claims. By term’s end he’d uttered 30,573 lies, reports The Washington Post.

Now, he is joined by his promoter Elon Musk who is flooding his own platform X with disinformation—for example, about the bipartisan end-of-year funding deal.

Some play down our current “mis-and-disinformation” crisis as nothing new. Referring to the Vietnam War era, the Heritage Foundation says “Trump is not guilty of any lie, falsehood, fabrication, false claim, or toxic exaggeration that equals the lies of one past president [Lyndon Johnson] whose Alamo-sized ego caused the deaths of thousands of Americans.” In 2018, Heritage dismissed Trump’s lies as insignificant embellishment about “his wealth, his girlfriends of decades ago, or the size of his inaugural crowd.”

Yet, his more recent lies have had deadly consequences. Playing down the severity of Covid-19, Trump described it as “like the flu,” “under control,” and “already disappearing.” His casting doubt about protective measures likely contributed to “tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths,” reported health scientists.

After losing the presidential race in 2020, he repeatedly reinforced unsubstantiated questioning of electoral integrity. “Trump’s big lie”—sparking a violent insurrection on January 6—caused multiple deaths and helped trigger stricter voter-registration laws.

Trump’s actions may have taken us into a new era some call “post-truth” politics. So, what might this mean? And how might we learn from democracies standing up against mis- and disinformation?

Lies are about a particular event—as in former President Bill Clinton’s denial of an extramarital affair; whereas “post -truth” refers to a “shift to another reality” in which facts don’t matter anymore, observes Irish philosopher Vittorio Bufacchi.

The stakes are high as “post-truth is pre-fascism,” warns Yale history professor Timothy Synder in On Tyranny. Pretty grim.

But to step up most of us need to sense the possibility of success, or at least movement in the direction of well-being. So, where might we find grounds for honest hope? Let’s look at what courageous peer nations are doing.

Between 2011 and 2022, 78 countries passed misinformation and disinformation laws covering social media, including Germany’s “anti-hate-speech law.” Yes, some measures have been criticized for unintended consequences. In authoritarian states and those with weak guardrails against misuse, they can cause harm. As in the monarchy Bahrain. It used fake news laws to control content and threaten journalists with arrest. Some critics note that Germany’s anti-hate-speech risks “over-blocking” content.

But we cannot afford to give up.

Fact-checking news websites such as PolitiFact and Snopes—flagging content on social media—are valiant efforts. So far they’ve been only moderately helpful, but we can learn from their experience to create a holistic, long-term approach to countering mis-and-disinformation.

One key will be more independent and public journalism, including PBS and NPR, driven not by narrow profit or partisan agendas. As local journalism—perhaps easiest to hold accountable—has suffered a sharp decline in the past decades, state and local governments can step up with financial support and incentives. Here, many peer nations can inspire us.

Several have much to teach us about addressing disinformation with public news media. One exemplar is New Zealand with a unique approach. Since 1989, its Broadcast Standards Authority has offered an easily accessible, transparent online platform for any citizen to call out disinformation. The authority is tasked with investigating and requiring removal of what is both false and harmful material.

The BSA seems to have been both cautious and effective.

In the early years, complaints were upheld in 30% of cases. But by 2021-22, those upheld had shrunk to just under 5%. That’s a big change. And, a possible implication? Knowing one can be exposed for harmful lies can discourage perpetrators.

“BSA has, over more than three decades, overseen a standards system that has been a game changer in delivering on a vision of freedom in broadcasting without harm,” says its chief executive Stacey Wood.

Want to know more?

See our exploration in Crisis of Trust: How Can Democracies Protect Against Dangerous Lies?

Another key?

Strengthening media literacy. Sadly, as of 2023 only three states required media literacy classes. So let us quickly spread this opportunity to strengthen our ability not only to critically assess information but also identify motives behind the lies. The News Literacy Project provides helpful resources and programs.

Finally, we can encourage public debate and action to transform social media platforms into fact-based public discourse, functioning without harm. “At the end of the day,” observes Cornell psychologist Gordon Pennycook, “you cannot use psychological interventions to resolve this problem. There are structural, systematic, underlying problems that need to be dealt with.” Platforms such as X systemically spread disinformation.

So, what can we do?

Initiatives around the world are calling for public-or-user-owned platforms, such as the Platform Cooperativism Consortium. We can strengthen emerging alternatives like Bluesky or Mastodon, as we simultaneously urge for public regulation, such as the European Union’s Digital Services Act.

There’s no “silver bullet,” of course. But the good news is that many Americans are awakening to the disinformation crisis after experiencing tragically unnecessary Covid-19 deaths and facing today’s unprecedented lies from our president-elect.

For sure, deep change requires courage. So, with pounding hearts let us jump into this contentious arena. We can spark discussion-and-action commitments within our own families, friendship circles, schools at all levels, and workplaces. We can fortify our determination by exploring and sharing the innovations of others.

Together, we can make history as we help save our democracy from today’s deadly disinformation plague.

Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 20 books, beginning with the acclaimed "Diet for a Small Planet." Most recently she is the co-author, with Adam Eichen, of the new book, "Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want." Among her numerous previous books are "EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want" (Nation Books) and "Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life." She is co-founder of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Small Planet Institute.