Disinformation Protection Is as Crucial as Cybersecurity
Disinformation has been a big problem across the world for a number of years and it is a problem that has been exacerbated by the growth of social media over the past decade. News and information used to be more strictly controlled. Professional journalists and editors controlled what was published.
It was impossible to write and publish a book without convincing a publisher that you could write competently and had something worthwhile to say. Now anyone can publish a book and anyone can publish their own news stories from anywhere at anytime.
Information and news has been democratized. It is freed from the gatekeepers, but this also creates the issue of disinformation. This is where people deliberately share false information – often called ‘fake news.’
Fake news has mostly been used in politics. Supporters of one politician will share negative stories about another politician. They may not even be true. They may be completely invented – it doesn’t matter. Once the story goes viral and is shared many times, the damage is done.
However, as the industry analyst Gartner has noted in their strategic technology predictions for 2025, this is becoming an issue that technology executives also need to think about carefully.
What are people saying about your company and your products online? Are rival companies or dissatisfied customers deliberately creating false information about your business and sharing it?
Imagine the negative consequences for a food business if someone shares photos of a rat infested kitchen and suggests it is the kitchen in one of your most important restaurants or food delivery preparation areas. The photo doesn’t even need to be real – it can be created using AI image generating tools or it could just be a rat infestation that is entirely unconnected with the restaurant.
Imagine the effect on a popular retail brand if someone shares information about your annual accounts indicating that the business uses various tax dodges – the company earns millions, but pays no tax. Even if it is entirely false, the information can spread before you ever have a chance to publish the truth around the situation.
In the 2023 book ‘Dark PR’, Grant Ennis details how most multinational companies are manipulating consumers through a series of tricks and mistruths. For example, there are many food products that are presented as healthy and yet they are far from healthy – the customer is fooled. The problem of knowing who to trust comes from all around – even brands we trust and know well are not always being honest.
Disinformation feels like a problem for communications professionals or the executive management team, but as the Gartner report suggests, the way to deal with this is through technology.
You cannot fight disinformation by responding later with valid and truthful information. We have all seen how opinions can be changed permanently, even if the correct information was released later.
This is now a technological battle. You need AI-powered tools to monitor what people are saying about your brand and your products. You need to enable systems that can respond immediately and help shut down mistruths within seconds of them being spread online.
Protecting against disinformation is now an integral part of the protection of your business, in exactly the same way as monitoring for hacking and data breaches is. In fact, this process should be wrapped into one so all these tasks are AI-enabled and are watching out for your business 24/7.
Technology has enabled this negative situation, but technology can also be the solution too.
Follow IBA Group on LinkedIn for regular updates and comment.