Once out in the world, disinformation can undermine elections, pose risks to public health and stoke division and violence against minorities. And, these days, even the most media literate among us can fall victim to false information.
Once a public figure gets on board, a small-scale conspiracy can be propelled to overwrought controversy; powerful actors seeking to manipulate minds need not even implicate themselves in the spread of falsified claims by funding biased research, influencers or front groups from afar. Alternatively, they can work with highly specialized agencies within the rapidly growing and largely legal disinformation-for-hire industry.However, inaccurate or incorrect information may also arise organically from political polarization and an unstable media ecosystem.
