Misinformation Battle Revisited: Counter Strategies from Clinics to Artificial Intelligence

The spread of misinformation is one of the severe challenges that societies have been dealing with for many years. However, the rapid growth of social media has accelerated the creation and circulation of such information and turned it into a potential threat to the main societal institutions such as peace and democracy. Although many of iconic figures, policymakers, business leaders and researchers have warned us of serious repercussions of misinformation, a clear course of action is not yet visible. To tackle such an issue, the preliminary step would be the evaluation of the as-is situation, which allows us to identify the deficiencies of existing solutions. This issue has been addressed in this study by a comprehensive analysis over decades of societal efforts against misinformation. In this analysis, quelling strategies from organisational and government perspectives are explained. Then they are investigated from efficacy level and governance mode. Our analyses show that, despite a seemingly suitable setting for confronting misinformation, there is a major shortcoming in governance mode of current quelling strategies.