When supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the country’s Congress, comparisons were made to the 2021 US Capitol Building riot. Like the American attack, the invaders were extremists acting in the name of an ousted right-wing president and — in both cases — the insurrections came following elections rife with misinformation. Regulating misinformation without suppressing free speech has been a persistent headache for governments around the world. Australia’s updated misinformation code still doesn’t capture all messenger services, while new laws in Turkey are “micro-managing and throttling social media” in the eyes of journalists. If there was hope social media platforms would step in where governments couldn’t, recent developments aren’t encouraging. When it comes to moderating misinformation, Facebook’s parent company Meta is slashing jobs after underwhelming earnings and might be stepping away from news altogether. The ascendant TikTok is rife with misinformation and Twitter has rarely escaped headlines since billionaire Elon Musk took the reins.
Daniel Angus, Professor of Digital Communication at Queensland University of Technology says Musk’s leadership has sent Twitter’s moderation backwards.
“He has trashed the platform’s online safety division and as a result misinformation is back on the rise,” he says.
