The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) has identified social media platform owners, politicians and governments as the biggest threats to the online news environment. Modeled on the United Nations’ Panel on Climate Change, this expert group has been working for some time to combat information pollution and misinformation.
Social media creates a problematic information environment
Philip Howard, professor of internet studies at Oxford University and co-founder of IPIE, emphasized that the control of social media platform owners over content distribution and moderation policies endangers the global information environment. “The unchecked power of these platform owners seriously threatens the health of the information environment,” Howard said.
The panel’s findings are based on a survey of 412 academics from disciplines including social sciences, humanities and computer science. Respondents were predominantly from the US and Western Europe, but also included countries such as China, India, Nigeria and Brazil.
Among social media platforms, the report highlighted Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (Facebook and Instagram). It also expressed concerns that TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, could also be subject to pressure from the Chinese government.
Mercedes launched the era of in-car cinema with the RIDEVU application, a Sony Pictures Entertainment service.
Nearly two-thirds of the experts surveyed predict that the information environment will worsen in the future. It was also noted that AI-generated content – especially videos and audios – increase misinformation. But there was also hope that AI could also help journalists detect misinformation.
To tackle these problems, experts recommend encouraging independent media, launching digital literacy campaigns and labeling misinformation.
