ANGELO LYNN

Misinformation and its close cousin, disinformation, were recently ranked the top short-term risk (defined as the next two years) facing the world in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2024 report. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, cited that report and emphasized the need to combat the world’s growing polarization, caused in large part by the intentional use of disinformation.

“This is a time to build trust — to deeper global collaboration more than ever before,” she said. “Europe can and must take the lead in shaping the global response.”

President Leyen is spot on. With AI creating new innovations at lightning speed across the world’s digital platforms, the opportunity to spread misinformation and disinformation across the globe is without parallel. She also rightly understands that America’s system of government, with the Republican party wedded to an ex-president who owes his power to misinformation, is in no position to help.

Indeed, ex-president Trump has convinced more than half of his Republican supporters that President Joe Biden stole the election in 2020, even though more than 70 court cases rejected Trump’s claims the election was stolen and not a single court ruled in his favor. And even though every Secretary of State in the nation, Republican or Democrat, ruled against Trump and verified the election outcomes as accurate, Trump’s constant campaign to torture the truth paid off: he’s convinced Republicans that the lie he told on election day 2020 is no longer a lie.

When that’s possible, truth is spun on its head. 

What makes it possible is the constant bombardment of lies from many sources on social media. That is, Trump’s lies would not hold as much sway had he not had so many Fox News and other conservative commentators repeating those lies for him.

Without his support from conservative media, the nation would see Trump for the liar and outlier he is, much as Nikki Haley has been saying as she campaigned in Iowa and now in New Hampshire.

Yet Trump’s use of misinformation and disinformation is child’s play — denying affairs, sexual assaults, suggesting he didn’t incite his followers to attack the Capitol, and even denying he lost the election — compared to what powerful dictators could do in world affairs. Already Russia has used misinformation to blame attacks, indeed the invasion, on the Ukrainians instead of the other way around; China, Russia, Iran and other nations now spread disinformation on foreign and domestic affairs of other countries as a way to change election outcomes or foreign policy decisions; climate news is now being manipulated by oil and gas companies to suggest renewable energy isn’t as effective or economic as originally said, hoping to weaken support among moderates; news in much of the world has to be thoroughly fact-checked to see what might seem reasonable — as does news, particularly conspiracy theories, from many Republicans in the U.S. Congress. And that so many far right Americans actually believe in some of the conspiracies conservative outlets spread is a wakeup call to the power of misinformation.

While climate change is listed as the top global risk over the next decade, and the world court recognizes “climate and conflict as the dangerous duo” facing the world, misinformation dropped to fifth most dangerous risk over the next 10 years, perhaps because they hope the world will have figured out how to mitigate its harm in the near term.

We can only hope. What we know, however, is that when people can’t tell the difference between truth and fiction, democracies break down and authoritarians move in with tough talk convincing voters only they know how to fix the nation’s ills. The truth is, only fools believe them.

Angelo Lynn