ABSTRACT
This chapter examines efforts to tackle misinformation in referendum campaigns in six anglophone democracies: The United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Some of these countries have seen particularly strong concerns about “post-truth” politics, while others have been at the vanguard of efforts to address such challenges. The chapter begins by characterizing the nature of misinformation, emphasizing that it can take multiple forms: It may be wholly or partly false, be misleading, or contain only some of the truth; and it may be found in factual claims about the past or present or in future predictions. The chapter then identifies two sets of strategies for tackling misinformation: By confronting it directly (banning it, fact-checking, transparency); or by crowding it out through the promotion of high-quality information (e.g., public information campaigns or deliberative exercises such as citizens’ assemblies). Through detailed empirical examination of measures employed in the six countries, the chapter concludes that an approach to tackling misinformation that focuses solely on confronting it directly is unlikely to succeed. Only a combination of such measures with proactive efforts to promote high-quality information is likely to have an appreciable effect.
