After the shocking scenes of disorder in Belfast this week, fuelled by the spread of inaccurate and inflammatory information online following Monday’s knife attack, the debate on what should be done to combat social media misinformation has been reignited.
As well as calls for further regulation on the big tech firms, a new report from the Social Market Foundation think tank found disinformation to be thriving in places with the least local journalism outlets, while the areas with strong coverage by traditional media had far less local misinformation.
So joining host Alain Tolhurst to look at what the government can do to harness local journalism and help ensure people can find truthful information in their area, is one of the paper’s authors, Jamie Gollings, deputy research director at the SMF.
Alongside them are John Penrose, the Conservative former minister who served as the UK Anti-Corruption Champion for five years, and who since leaving Parliament helped set up the Council for Countering Online Disinformation, and Theo Bamber, chief executive of journalism industry group the News Media Association.
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