Truth, Disrupted

In March of 2018 President Trump’s tweets claiming that Amazon pays “little or no taxes to state & local governments” sent the company’s stock toward its worst monthly performance in two years. Trump had his facts wrong — and the stock price has since recovered — but the incident highlights an unsettling problem: Companies are profoundly vulnerable to misinformation spreading on social media. Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media has focused primarily on whether false news affected the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But the truth is that nobody is safe from this kind of damage. The spread of falsity has implications for our democracies, our economies, our businesses, and even our national security. We must make a concerted effort to understand and address its spread.