A new poll shows a lack of consensus on disinformation solutions

Who should be responsible for curbing the spread of disinformation?

We might start by looking at who is responsible for spreading it. Those of us who follow this topic closely know there are a number of answers to that question: nefarious foreign actors, irresponsible platforms, zealous partisans, politicians who lie with impunity, people who stand to make a buck off of misinformation and social media users who get duped into passing along falsehoods.

That lack of a single source also explains why it is so hard to identify a solution. There’s not just one place to look.

Now a new poll on disinformation reflects the difficulty people have in assigning responsibility for addressing the problem. NPR, PBS NewsHour and the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion reported this week that a poll they conducted this month showed little consensus when it asked people to choose who should have the “main responsibility” for addressing the question: 39% pointed to the media, 18% to technology companies, 15% to the government and 12% to the public.

This is the second poll in a year in which the largest share of respondents said the media should have the primary responsibility for reducing the flow of misinformation. In a Pew Research Center survey conducted in early 2019, 53% of respondents said journalists have the most responsibility to fix the problem.

In the new poll, it’s worth noting the partisan breakdown of respondents who said the media holds the main responsibility. As NPR’s Brett Neely notes, it is probably not surprising that 54% of Republicans said stopping the spread of disinformation is mainly the media’s responsibility, given President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that the media traffics in “fake news.” In contrast, 29% of Democrats put the main onus on the media.

There is also the question of whether it is realistic to ask people to assign the main responsibility for stopping the flow of disinformation to one entity, since the problem almost certainly needs a multi-faceted solution. To address politicians who lie, the solution may be more fact-checking to hold them accountable. Platforms that turn a blind eye to dangerous misinformation may need more regulation. To help users spread less false information, we might need more news literacy programs.

At least people are aware that the problem is a difficult one. In the new poll, 59% of respondents reported that it is hard to tell the difference between factual and misleading information. That recognition could be an important step in getting more accountability – regardless of who people see as “mainly” responsible.