This stage considers people’s relationships to information in everyday life, including how healthier habits can be enabled or encouraged. It explores ways to encourage critical engagement with content and reduce susceptibility to disinformation. Efforts include applying fact-checks and warning labels to debunk falsehoods and enhancing peer- to-peer moderation for greater accountability.4.4 Consumption (engagement)Marketplace Introduce “circuit breakers” for moments when disinformation surges, particularly around elections, conflicts, terrorist incidents, natural disasters and public health emergencies. Strengthen protocols that allow time for human review and verification before false claims can reach a critical mass. Platforms must also improve real-time transparency on the actions they take during crises – clearly communicating what content is being removed, downranked or labelled, and explaining the rationale behind these decisions to maintain public trust. Label known disinformation using tools such as hashing, enabling quicker identification and mitigation as content spreads across and between platforms. Additionally, build stronger forums for intelligence-sharing between service providers, particularly when recurrent issues or tactics are detected – such as website spoofing, astroturfing networks,34 coordinated inauthentic behaviour and identity fraud – ensuring a more unified response to emerging threats. Supply Increase investment in local and citizen journalism that adheres to strong ethical standards, ensuring that high-quality information remains accessible and not prohibitively expensive or difficult to find. Rather than attempting to mimic rapidly shifting digital trends, focus on meeting key audiences where they already convene online, leveraging mixed media formats and diverse languages. Support underserved communities in telling their own stories by providing training and resources that enhance their ability to produce credible content. Additionally, prioritize partnerships with influencers who have already built significant followings in the news and information space. Providing these creators with targeted media and digital literacy training can strengthen their role as ambassadors for information integrity and equip them to responsibly engage their audiences or counter disinformation in a trusted, authentic way. Demand Apply appropriate warning labels and fact-checks to disinformation online, as well as accounts repeatedly found to share such content. Increase accountability through tools for peer-to-peer moderation and education. For crisis events or topics most vulnerable to attack, create hubs of fact-based information and link these to relevant search terms. Educate consumers about phenomena such as echo chambers, which may narrow their understanding of the world or falsely imply that a viewpoint has universal consensus. Rethinking Media Literacy: A New Ecosystem Model for Information Integrity 20

Rethinking Media Literacy 2025