Table 3.

Potential responses to misinformation (table adapted from: ‘Broadband Commission research report on ‘Freedom of Expression Addressing Disinformation on the Internet’ and ‘Governmental actions to address COVID-19 misinformation’)^{11 23}

Response/ strategy	Description	Purpose of the strategy	Intersections with freedom-of-expression rights
Monitoring and fact-checking	Ongoing monitoring and timely exposing misinformation (eg, debunked claims) and fact-checking new claims. Judgement of trained professionals employed by independent organisations, even when helped by automation.	Mitigating dissemination of disinformation, false information and misinformation.	Can mitigate the risk of infringing on freedom-of-expression rights.
Counter-misinformation campaigns	Specialised units to develop counter-narratives to challenge misinformation and mobilising online communities to spread high-quality evidence.
Credibility labelling	Content-verification tools, web-content indicators, signposting to credible evidence sources and website-credibility labelling.	Disseminating and increasing access to accurate information.
Educational	Develop citizens’ media/information literacy for critical-thinking and digital-verification, and journalists’ information literacy.
Curatorial	Point users to credible evidence sources, which can be used by news media, social media, messaging and search platforms.
Narrative	Public condemnations of misinformation and recommendations to address it, often by political and societal leaders.	Restricting access to inaccurate information.
Technical and algorithmic	Ranges from human learning to machine learning and other artificial intelligence approaches to identify misinformation, provide additional context and limit spread.		Automation of appeal processes can infringe on freedom-of-expression rights.
Economic	Advertising bans, demonetising specific content (eg, for COVID-19) and approaches to remove misinformation incentives.	Addressing commercial fraud.	Can be misused as a form of private censorship.
Legislative and other policy	Criminalise acts of misinformation, directing internet communication companies to take down content and providing material support for credible information sources.	Criminalising expressions of disinformation.	Can be misused to weaken legitimate journalism and infringe on freedom-of-expression rights.
Investigative	Examine instigators, degree and means of spread, money involved and affected communities.		Can inform legislative and other responses.