The tragic events unfolding in Israel and Gaza have blanketed both social and legacy media, and the volume of false and unverified information circulating online has ballooned.
Maintaining the integrity of the online information space has always been a challenge in rapidly shifting environments—including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where social media has become an important front in the war and propaganda narratives are rife. In periods of acute crisis, there is a clear supply and demand problem. Demand for information skyrockets, but the supply of credible, fact-based information lags or may be absent altogether. In this void, false, exaggerated, and decontextualized claims can pervade the information space.
The Israel-Gaza crisis has become the next digital battlefield. But recent shifts in the online ecosystem have made an already difficult arena even more challenging. What changes have further stressed the online information space? And is there anything we can do to reverse course? Valerie Wirtschafter addresses these and other questions in her latest commentary.
How did Germany fare without Russian gas? Many argued that an embargo on Russian gas would crush Germany’s economy. But before Germany could act, Russia decided to halt the flow of gas to the country. Ben Harris, Benjamin Moll, and Georg Zachmann join the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity to discuss the effects.
Interpreting the ambiguities of Section 230. No statute has had a bigger impact on the internet than Section 230. But nearly 30 years after its enactment, there are still basic questions about its meaning and scope. Alan Z. Rozenshtein provides an overview of the judicial and legislative contexts around Section 230, areas of liability, and where courts go from here.
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