Treating Disinformation Like a Disease

It's been noted here and elsewhere that disinformation and misinformation spreads like a disease. Now researchers and companies are beginning to treat it like a disease and to try to use disease fighting techniques to combat it. 

On Tuesday, Edelman launched what it calls the Disinformation Shield, a tool that uses artificial intelligence, real-time media monitoring of the open and dark webs, and social psychology to track, identify, and defuse the next viral meme or hideous conspiracy theory that brings a major corporation to its knees. The product draws on van der Linden’s inoculation theories to try to prevent the spread of disinformation, not unlike a public-health agency would do to prevent a highly transmissible and potentially dangerous virus from rampaging through a population.

Jim O’Leary, Edelman’s head of global corporate affairs, said in an interview that disinformation was the new battleground not just for elections and governments but for the business world. Just as most of corporate America awoke to the importance of cybersecurity six or seven years ago, companies large and small now realize they can’t ignore the global information crisis. “Disinformation is not ‘the next great threat,’” he says. “It’s here today. For our clients, this has entered the realm of not ‘if’ but ’when.’”