Tackling the Information Crisis: A Policy Framework for Media System Resilience

"The key challenge is to foster accountability while preserving the right to freedom of expression - even when the views are challenging, radical, and are offensive to some - in the face of pressure to protect the public from disinformation and the promotion of hatred or harm."

In light of changes in the United Kingdom (UK) media system that have resulted in an "information crisis", this report recommends actions aimed at addressing systemic problems and at creating conditions that will help to sustain democratic processes of deliberation and consensus building in the UK. Engaging with a wide range of practitioners, policymakers, researchers, politicians, civil society organisations (CSOs), and members of the public, the London School of Economics (LSE) Truth, Trust and Technology Commission (T3) has been grappling with questions such as: How can we protect democracy from digital damage? How can we help people make the most of the opportunities of the internet while avoiding the harm it can cause? Sparked by concerns about the so-called fake news, the Commission sets out a wide-ranging strategy in this report to build a more resilient media system fit for the information ecosystem in the UK.

To introduce the problem, the report begins with a look at the nature of the information crisis, which the Commission contends is systemic and caused by unprecedented change happening in Western media systems. Online platforms are where an increasing proportion of UK citizens discover news, and citizens are getting information from, and engaging in discussion on, social media platforms as well as using traditional news sources. Established practices of journalistic verification, institutional accountability, and the ethical "truth filters" of a free, but responsible, news media are being dismantled.

The Commission is concerned about 3 types of information: misinformation, which is information that is false, but not created with the intention of causing harm; disinformation, which false and deliberately created to cause harm; and mal-information, which occurs when information based on reality is used to inflict harm, often by moving information designed to stay private into the public sphere. In this context, the Commission feels that, in combination, the following 5 "evils" are a threat to individual decision-making, national security, and democratic government:

1. Confusion: Citizens are less sure about what is true, and whom to believe.
2. Cynicism: Citizens are losing trust, even in trustworthy sources.
3. Fragmentation: Citizens have access to potentially infinite knowledge, but the pool of agreed facts on which to base societal choices is diminishing.
4. Irresponsibility: Power over meaning is held by organisations that lack a developed ethical code of responsibility and exist outside of clear lines of accountability and transparency.
5. Apathy: As a result, citizens disengage from established structures of society and are losing faith in democracy.

Furthermore, Western liberal democracies face many long-term challenges, as the Commission explains, including: fragilities in the political and electoral system; changes in the economy as it passes through austerity and structural change; ecological, social, and demographic changes and problems of adapting the welfare state; and the relationship of UK citizens and communities to the regional and international forces of immigration, inequality, and crises in international governance. These difficult challenges have triggered simple populist reactions, in part because the new media system is conducive to the emotionality of those reactions.

In this context, the Commission indicates that the information crisis must be addressed through a systemic and robust response. The public and private institutions involved in the media system have developed their own approaches, which the report unpacks and analyses (see also Appendix 2 for a brief summary of selected recent initiatives). For instance, the news media has responded by focusing on quality, self-regulation, "credibility signalling", and new funding models. Platforms such as Google have responded with new partnerships for filtering, blocking, and moderation. Public authorities have responded through, for example, competition regulation and "structural" remedies. Finally, efforts around media literacy - deemed a necessary condition for democracy in a digital age - have been undertaken both in schools and among the general public.

Section 4 of the report delineates the limitations of the policy interventions outlined, including: coordination problems; insufficient evidence, research, and evaluation; and regulatory capture, conflicts of interest, and protecting freedom of expression. These limitations inspire the recommendations offered in Section 5. In short, the Commission recommends the formation of an Independent Platform Agency (IPA), a watchdog that would evaluate the effectiveness of platform self-regulation and the development of quality journalism, reporting to Parliament and offering policy advice. ("This Commission is firmly and unanimously against the establishment of any regulator that is formally linked to government or which has, as its goal, active regulation of 'truth'.") According to the Commission, the IPA should be funded by a new levy on UK social media and search advertising revenue. It should be a permanent forum for monitoring and reviewing the behaviour of online platforms and should provide annual reviews of "the state of disinformation". It would work with a range of stakeholders to foster the resilience of the information environment and do so in a manner consistent with democratic values.

The report lays out specific immediate and longer-term recommendations, which are undergirded by the following principles for policy reform:

• Freedom of expression: The right to impart and receive ideas without interference should be preserved. Restrictions should be proportionate, legitimate, and prescribed by law.
• Subsidiarity: Decisions about content standards should be taken as close as possible to those that are affected.
• Transparency: Decisions about filtering, promotion, and takedown of content can be censorship, and can undermine trust. They should be made according to well-known principles and reported publicly.
• Evidence: Access to improved data for regulators and the public is fundamental.
• Civil society involvement: CSOs should be involved in reforms of co-regulation and self-regulation.
• Ongoing review: The process of reform will be an iterative process; the potential outcome (on a continuum from self-regulation, to regulation to break-up of dominant companies) is not clear at the outset.
• Independence: The new IPA should be structurally independent from government, including in its appointments and finances.

In addition to its key recommendations, the report proposes a new programme of media literacy and a statutory code for political advertising. For instance, on the former matter, the Commission suggests that the Department for Education lead an inclusive educational framework to build digital literacy, with the IPA coordinating work with the BBC and public service broadcasters, libraries, the National Literacy Trust, and the platforms. Per the Commission, this curricula effort across the UK needs to focus on both children in schools and on adults in further and vocational education. The IPA would assess and evaluate the platforms' role in promoting media literacy to highlight both good and bad practice. It would track improvements by working with Ofcom or complementing Ofcom's research to ensure sufficient evidence on the public's critical news and information literacy. By issuing regular policy research reports and briefings and reporting directly to Parliament, the IPA would ensure that politicians and future policymaking are better informed.

In conclusion, the Commission stresses that "This report is an intervention in an ongoing debate. We welcome critical and constructive responses to the ideas raised. We will continue our engagement with stakeholders and the public as the agenda develops over the next critical period which will shape our information ecology."