Information emergency + News/Analysis

The Spectrum of Misinformation returns for 2026 with more news, analysis & practical advice for communicators.

In News digest: deepfakes threaten democracy, Ofcom vs viral lies, local misinformation for local people, bots and troll farms, algorithmic resets, Ebola conspiracies, fake denamings, BlueSky hijack, menopause misinfo. Plus: HPV vaccine success, and research on credible sources. Seeing flashing blue lights after all that? You're not alone, it's a !Warning! Information Emergency, with an afterimage of Past traumas.

News digest

The Independent highlights concerns misinformation is a threat to democracy with a FullFact report suggesting 80% of the UK public are worried about political misinformation with only 3% saying they are confident at spotting AI-generated videos or fake political information.

The Guardian covers Ofcom ordering social media companies to have emergency measures to stop illegal content going viral. It follows riots over the police response to the Henry Novak stabbing. Misinformation about those involved forced a former police officer into hiding.

BBC covers Keir Starmer criticising those "spreading lies and misinformation" about grooming gangs without being interested in victims after Musk said Starmer was "complicit in the rape of Britain".

The Independent reports analysis by the Social Market Foundation which suggests that, based on local Facebook group data, three times more misinformation is being spread in areas with limited local news outlets.

Lucy Powell told The Guardian Reform UK was using bots and troll farms to spread divisive material: "The spread of mis- and disinformation is a real and present danger to our democracy... We should look to strengthen the elections bill as much as possible to tighten up the rules." Liz Kendall said the government was: “looking at not only boosting trusted sources of information... But also... enabling people to reset their algorithms.”

DW reports misinformation and conspiracy theories are complicating the response to the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in DRC, with some believing the disease isn't real or is being spread deliberately.

AP highlights a radio show set up to combat Ebola outbreak rumours with WHO's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying: "Misinformation is almost as dangerous as the virus itself and spreads just as fast".

BBC Verify analysed a fake AI-generated video showing Trump's name being ripped off the front of the Kennedy Centre building.

France24 covers how a Russian disinformation campaign hijacked hundreds of BlueSky accounts to spread anti-Ukraine propaganda.

The Guardian reports menopause misinformation on social media puts women at risk of unintended pregnancies, unnecessary treatment and missed diagnosis.

Gavi highlights Burundi's successful HPV vaccination campaign which has tackled misinformation about the safety of the vaccine.

CEPR carries an analysis of recent research which suggests:

'In an information environment increasingly shaped by algorithms and AI-generated content, preserving the visibility of credible news sources may be as important as correcting false information itself.'

!Warning! Information emergency

When you're focused on daily misinformation attacks it's easy to lose track of slow cumulative changes to the information landscape that, like grinding tectonic faults, shift the ground from under you.

So what's changed? And what does it mean for communicators?

Below I survey the seismic shocks affecting internet search, social media, and the news media and give my tips on how to survive what's next...

Search is over

TechCrunch reports, from this summer, instead of returning the familiar "ten blue links" Google searches will show a new "intelligent search box" that will "drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences".

This will, they say, turn Google searches into AI-powered conversations and let people create multiple "information agents" within searches.

In many way this feels like an extension of Google's existing AI overviews (long criticised for being inaccurate/misleading) with the information agents an AI version of Google Alerts. But while the direction of travel is no surprise the speed and scale of change is alarming.

The quality of Google search returns has been declining for some time. For AI haters this may be the final straw, causing many to flock to AI-free search engines such as DuckDuckGo.

But Google is still the world's most popular search engine, with a 90% market share. For those ignorant of (or unbothered by) AI-creep it remains their "window on the Internet" and main information portal.

Google's aim appears to be creating a "walled garden" that mediates all access to the Internet, discouraging you from ever leaving its interface. Even if some switch to alternative search engines, it's likely to see traffic to sources of trustworthy information plummet.

Anti-social media

While Google is trying to corral users, social media platforms are either making them invisible or replacing them entirely.

A preprint paper by Peter Törnberg & Richard Rogers makes a convincing case that social media is now profoundly anti-social, with our feeds dominated by algorithmic recommendations and GenAI content.

Users have become spectators. Meta's own stats say on Instagram people spend fewer than 1 in 10 minutes viewing content from people they follow, while Törnberg reports close to a 50% drop in viewing and posting on both X and Facebook in 2026 compared to 2020.

Danah Boyd suggests we should dump 'social media' as a term and that we've entered a new age of 'parasocial media'.

At the same time people are retreating into closed online spaces such as private messaging groups on TikTok, WhatsApp and Facebook.

Media cuts & junk news

Meanwhile, media organisations still reeling from pandemic shocks and struggling to complete with influencers for an audience, are now facing the prospect of 'no click' AI searches fatally undermining their advertising business model (although UK media are fighting back).

The drumbeat of layoffs is worrying: last month the BBC promised to cut up to 1 in 10 staff with Press Gazette calculating last year over 3,400 media jobs were lost in the UK & US. Inevitably, these cuts will negatively impact journalism and further degrade the information environment.

As investment in quality journalism declines, so junk news sites (looking at you Memesita and Archyde) thrive, using GenAI to churn out clickbait slop featuring fake quotes from fake experts.

Netflix for info

And then there's OpenAI's Sam Altman saying: “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter”. If, like me, you believe chatbots aren't really intelligent, but are instead stealing and remixing other people's thoughts to give realistic responses, then the endgame appears to be metering knowledge - creating a Netflix for information.

If you're struggling to keep up with what's happening, it's not just you: speaking as an ex-journalist who's spent 15+ years managing media & comms across universities and government, the information landscape is more broken, chaotic, and confusing than I've ever seen it.

I think the first step to fighting misinformation and enhancing information integrity is to recognise that, with new technologies colliding, information infrastructure under threat, and existing comms channels declining before clear alternatives can emerge, what we're experiencing is an information emergency.

Because, TLDR: We're not doomed...

Survival guide: information emergency

No place for old plans: Reading the excellent Invisible Rulers by Renée DiResta, that charts the rise of influencers, it strikes me we're in danger of planning to fight the last communications war not the current one.

Flooding the zone with 'good' social media influencers/content to combat 'bad' influencers who misinform won't be enough in an age of 'parasocial media'. Moreover, as people retreat into closed online spaces 'going where people are' to share accurate information and pre/debunk false claims will no longer be as simple as setting up a new account.

Instead we need 'upstream' approaches, finding people who can gain you access to the private spaces where your audiences hang out, or interventions that feed into the places that algorithms scrape to curate info 'just for them'.

Invest in content not channels: With X a raging binfire, Facebook engulfed in AI slop, Threads unravelling and BlueSky lacking juice, the strategy of making a long-term investment in building and growing your following on a social channel now looks like a losing one.

Even stable platforms, such as LinkedIn or YouTube, are fickle. Algorithms change without warning, policies are updated so previously fine content is labelled 'sensitive' or removed, all at the whim of corporations.

Content is king when channels cannot be relied on. We should spend less time discussing "we need to be on TikTok" or "if only we were on Reddit" and more on creating platform-agnostic engaging short video, or encouraging experts to answer people's genuine questions.

Broaden your media engagement: It used to be knowing what specialist reporters covering your topics wanted was key to media success.

But with specialists being cut, and general reporters stepping in to cover breaking news and issues, media engagement has to become broader.

If we want factual messages to cut through, creating simple explainers accessible to non-specialists is vital. Consider pitches that plug into lifestyle trends, include case studies, or podcast-ready talking points.

Make information your treasure: The nuggets of information we produce are gold, and we can't afford for them to get washed away in the flood of slop. Instead of trying to do more on media or socials we should do less but faster and better. This might mean streamlining workflows, creating new templates for 'quick' articles or social assets.

Doubling-down on quality/efficiency could involve spending more time crafting and testing interventions to ensure they resonate with their target audience or like The Economist trialling web pages designed to be read by AIs, not humans.

These are just my initial thoughts on a survival strategy...

Emergency or new normal?

Protecting high-quality information goes beyond responding to individual false claims or narratives. Campaigns against evidence and experts can rumble on for years and flare up again when you least expect it.

That's why an institutional commitment to information integrity is so important. The old world, in which we used to put accurate information out there and think 'job done', is over. I'd suggest it's dangerous normalcy bias to believe otherwise.

Instead, as we face up to the information emergency, organisations have to be ready to fight for the information that matters to them: that's where my model of curate, create, defend [repeat] comes in.

Past traumas

Read more about the curate, create, defend model in an edition fixated on information integrity or relive a recent exploration of the chatbot trap.