Written Evidence: Harmful by Design: Current approaches to misinformation and how to improve harm mitigation

Abstract

Written evidence submitted to the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee by the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy for their inquiry into Social Media, Misinformation, and Harmful Algorithms. Our submission outlines 3 recommendations for Government and regulators:

A more holistic approach to online harms needs to evolve. An improved government approach could be informed by a shift to consider networks of harm and whole-network scale approaches to mitigate those harms.

A better data access framework is needed that builds the online safety regime in the UK.

Companies are not incentivised to tackle this problem via their business models. As policy develops through the implementation of the Online Safety Act and the expected AI Bill, the Government should consider creative approaches in addition to more stringent regulations. Models such as the Seoul Declaration and Christchurch Call provide frameworks to build upon.