Atlantic Council: Public Editor Democracy’s Defense Against Disinformation
June 14, 2019
In a report for governments, civil society organizations, and the public, Dr. Alina Polyakova and Ambassador Daniel Fried assess the problem of disinformation and various solutions. Noting that “social media companies’ business models are premised on increasing ad revenues, and sensationalist content sells best” the report calls on governments and content platforms to work together to reduce the sensationalist content spreading around the Internet. One of their recommendations: governments should support civil society organizations like Public Editor that are able to call out misinformation in real time and provide signals of credibility that can easily be used in platforms’ news feed algorithms.