The disinformation disintegration

Mark Zuckerberg sent shockwaves through the media world when, abruptly, in the days before Donald Trump's inauguration, he swapped sides in the information war. Meta would no longer appoint fact-checkers in the US, would radically rewrite its policies on abusive speech, and would promote political content once again. His companies had been engaging in "censorship", he said, in the guise of efforts to tackle disinformation.
But none of this came from nowhere: the warning signs were visible throughout 2024, with vanishing support for anti-disinformation efforts. Media Matters For America has laid off many of its staff as it battles off lawsuits. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media is being shuttered, also amid lawsuits. Facebook has shut down CrowdTangle and is ceasing to report on disinformation. The Department for Homeland Security's ill-fated disinformation efforts are gone – after forcing Nina Jankowicz into hiding for a time. Claire Wardle is no longer at the Information Futures Lab she founded at Brown. The Stanford Internet Observatory was shuttered this summer.
Anti-disinformation efforts proved – ironically – to be great targets for disinformation and conspiracy theories themselves. As political polarisation worsened, funding such projects became risky and institution after institution withdrew. The people at the heart of the effort to protect good information proved incapable of tackling its effects when they hit close to home.
Why has this happened and what can be done?
Moderated by James Ball.