Moderating misinformation remains a tricky business
A Pointer investigation has found that more than 30 Dutch podcasts regularly spread misinformation. Assistant professor Michael Klos spoke to Pointer about preventing misinformation in the media: ‘Realistically, you’re never going to achieve 100% moderation.’
Pointer examined 150,000 episodes of Dutch podcasts released over the course of 2022 and 2023. The analysis showed that 30 podcasts regularly promote medical misinformation and conspiracy theories. Dr Klos explains: ‘Conspiracy theories are often a series of assertions, where links are created between facts and unproven claims.’ These kinds of conversations often become a jumble of claims and facts, which Dr Klos describes as ‘very difficult to regulate’.
From a legal perspective, preventing misinformation is a challenging issue. Dr Klos does not advocate taking podcasts containing non-damaging misinformation offline: ‘You have to be careful that the cure is not worse than the disease.’ While he is in favour of removing illegal statements, he adds that ‘realistically, you’re never going to achieve 100% moderation’.
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Read the full Pointer article (in Dutch)
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