How America Escapes Its Conspiracy-Theory Crisis | The New Yorker

No consensus exists regarding how to counter the explosion of false information online, or its exploitation by politicians. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a former tech executive, told me that the amplification of information online, rather than the posting of it, could become a useful focus for regulation. “Should you have a right to say crazy, stupid, false things?” he asked. “Maybe you should have that right. But do you have that right then to have it amplified?” Warner called finding a way to create “guardrails” for the Web extraordinarily difficult. But, he said, “for companies to say, ‘We bear no responsibility’—it doesn’t pass the smell test.” Americans increasingly agree: a recent Knight Foundation survey found that seventy-three per cent of respondents wanted to see Internet companies find ways to exclude false or hateful information. Many also said that the news media was politically biased and contributed to polarization; sixty-two per cent said that it is becoming increasingly difficult for citizens to be well informed.