Thinking clearly about misinformation

In Western societies, misinformation concern is at an all-time high. Recently, however, debate has ensued regarding the level of concern that is warranted. Some researchers note the potential for misinformation to incur significant costs on individuals and societies, and call for interventions to reduce misinformation susceptibility and impacts 1 , 2 . Others warn against alarmist narratives, arguing that misinformation exerts only limited influence over beliefs and behaviours. This view proposes that problematic behaviours, such as vaccine hesitancy, are caused by systemic socio-economic and psycho-social issues, and thus calls for interventions to target those societal issues rather than misinformation creation and consumption, which represent only symptoms of these deeper issues 3 . Similarly, assuming low prevalence of misinformation, researchers have argued that interventions should focus on increasing trust in factual information 4 .