Misinformation and disinformation online is one of the great problems of our time. The digital era has enabled new and increasingly complex communication systems to flourish. Information flows across vast distances instantly and people are more interconnected than ever before. This also means that information which is inaccurate, misleading or objectively false can also travel at unprecedented rates, and often travels faster and farther than objectively truthful content. This information contaminates the online landscape and impacts people’s ability to discern accurate and truthful content. Misinformation and disinformation is often more sensationalized, which often leads to it being engaged with more often on platforms, this can in turn cause it to become favoured by algorithms. These algorithms tend to prioritize popular content to maintain users on platforms longer and exposes them to more advertisements, in order to gain advertising revenue.
This research used interviews, a survey and an extensive literature review to understand the spread of misinformation and disinformation in Canadian society today, and to map this using a systems approach. Following this, strategic foresight tools were used to generate potential future scenarios with the goal of making strategic recommendations for the current context.