Table 2.

Five stages of the misinformation cycle (table adapted from ‘Broadband Commission research report on ‘Freedom of Expression Addressing Disinformation on the Internet’)¹¹

Stage	Description of questions that arise
Instigators and beneficiaries	Motivation and goals.
Agents	Techniques (eg, bots, fake accounts or false identities).
Messages	Formats, with three of the common ones including:  Emotive claims and narratives, which often mix emotional language, lies or incomplete information, personal opinions and elements of truth.  Fabricated, de-contextualised or fraudulently altered images, videos or audio.  Fabricated websites and polluted data sets.
Intermediaries	Platforms (eg, dark web, social media, messaging and news media) and the platform features that are being exploited (eg, algorithms and business models).
Targets and interpreters	Who is affected (eg, citizens, scientists, politicians and journalists; organisations such as research centres and news agencies; communities such as black communities and Indigenous peoples; and systems such as electoral processes) and how they react (eg, ignoring or sharing to debunk the misinformation).