Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Crisis of Trust in Public Institutions

[United Nations University]

Misinformation and disinformation are not simply problems of false content or content moderation. They are multilevel governance failure.

Data practices and platform architectures shape how manipulation spreads. Governments regulate, sometimes crudely. Researchers often lack the access needed to understand systemic risks. And the consequences are felt across climate action, public health, elections, conflict prevention, and the Sustainable Development Goals.

I’m pleased to share a new policy brief for the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research: Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Crisis of Trust in Public Institutions.

The brief is deliberately modest about what the UN can achieve. It cannot “govern truth,” compel platforms to redesign their business models, or eliminate geopolitical incentives for manipulation. But it can help build the architecture for a practical settlement — one that connects human rights safeguards, platform accountability, and sector-specific action across the different layers at which the problem operates.

One thread running through the brief is data governance. The launch of the World Data Organization in March 2026 signals that rules on data access and control are being shaped in multiple venues outside the UN system. If information integrity is not built into those frameworks now, the two agendas risk permanent divergence.

I propose three priorities:
• privacy-preserving researcher access to platform data
• a light coordination mechanism linking information integrity to emerging data governance processes
• clearer human rights guidance on balancing privacy, transparency, and freedom of expression

The brief forms part of our wider #iGyro project at the NUS Centre for Trusted Internet and Community on the governance of misinformation and disinformation, and feeds into the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Misinformation and Disinformation, which I am editing with Araz Taeihagh and Audrey Yue.

Read the brief in full here.

You can also watch or listen to an interview I did with David Passarelli for United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR)’s #MultilateralismUNpacked podcast available here.