It was a joy to read the reasoned piece about immigration by Maya Goodfellow (Opinion, 13 August). I live in a village on the edge of the Clacton constituency and have been appalled by the increase in overt anti-immigrant sentiment, especially since Nigel Farage announced his candidacy for the seat. The issue speaks more broadly to the problem of misinformation, which seems to have been pushed aside as an issue to be tackled.
One of the main changes in recent years is the huge volume of misinformation in discussions on social media platforms such as Facebook and Nextdoor. I worry that factual information to counter this is considerably less abundant on such platforms, which so many people turn to for news and information.
There are of course a large number of cemented views in the country that won’t be turned as easily, but making factual information readily accessible may at least prevent more people from being pulled into the misinformation trap.
Misinformation is not only breeding hate; views such as those held by anti-vaxxers and far-right groups are also causing death and illness, and contaminating the minds of the young. If there was only one thing I could ask of our new government, it would be a coherent strategy to tackle misinformation and mitigate its effects.
Vanessa Scanlan
Colchester
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