The infrastructure behind misinformation

For much of the digital age, misinformation has been debated primarily as a problem of speech. The familiar questions revolve around free expression, censorship, fact checking, and the removal of harmful content. These concerns remain legitimate. Yet they no longer capture the scale or nature of the challenge societies now face. Misinformation, whether shared inadvertently or deliberately, today behaves less like a series of misleading statements and more like a systemic risk, embedded in the design, incentives, and governance of modern information systems. The issue is no longer only what is being said, but how information is built, distributed, and rewarded at scale.

In India, where digital platforms now mediate access to news, health advice, political messaging, and everyday communication, this shift is especially visible. The COVID pandemic offered a stark illustration. False claims about cures, vaccines, and transmission spread rapidly through messaging platforms, often outpacing official public health guidance. Authorities were not merely countering rumours. They were contending with high velocity forwarding networks that privileged speed and familiarity over verification. The problem was not the absence of speech regulation, but an information infrastructure that offered little friction, context, or authoritative signalling during a public health emergency. Fact checks and takedowns followed, but they lagged far behind system-driven virality.

Such episodes underline a broader reality. The contemporary information ecosystem is not a neutral carrier of expression. It is an engineered environment shaped by algorithmic amplification and engagement-driven ranking systems, advertising incentives, and limited public oversight. Content that triggers outrage, fear, or identity affirmation tends to perform better because it generates engagement. Engagement drives revenue. In this environment, misinformation thrives not necessarily because it is persuasive or credible, but because it is structurally advantaged.

Election periods provide another window into how this infrastructure operates. In recent Indian elections, manipulated videos, misleading clips, and selectively edited narratives circulated widely across platforms. Much of this content did not violate existing speech laws. Instead, it relied on distortion, emotional framing, and repetition. The effect was cumulative rather than singular. Voters encountered fragmented and often contradictory versions of reality, shaped by opaque recommendation systems and targeted distribution. Addressing such content after it has gone viral does little to mitigate its influence. The democratic risk lies in how platforms amplify and personalise information at scale, not merely in the legality of individual messages.

None of this absolves individuals of responsibility. People choose what they create and share, and those who knowingly spread false or harmful content should face consequences. But focusing primarily on individual behaviour misdiagnoses the problem. People cause accidents, yet unsafe roads determine how often accidents occur and how severe they become. In the same way, individual acts of misinformation matter, but it is the design of information systems that determines scale. Platforms remove friction, reward virality, and obscure context, converting millions of ordinary actions into systemic harm. Individual behaviour can and should be acted upon, but only system-level reform can prevent such behaviour from becoming a mass risk.

The infrastructure framing also helps explain why misinformation produces cascading harms across sectors. In India, communal flashpoints have repeatedly been linked to the circulation of old or out-of-context videos on social media. Often, the same clip resurfaces years later, stripped of context, and spreads rapidly because systems are optimised for engagement rather than verification. The issue is not the absence of laws against incitement. It is the absence of mechanisms that slow, flag, or contextualise high risk content before it reaches millions.

Global experience reinforces this point. In the United States and parts of Europe, vaccine misinformation flourished in ecosystems that rewarded polarising content, contributing to public health outcomes that strained hospitals and eroded trust in institutions. In financial markets, online rumours and coordinated narratives have triggered sudden volatility, demonstrating how misinformation can spill into economic infrastructure. These outcomes are not merely cultural failures or literacy gaps. They are predictable consequences of systems designed to maximise attention without sufficient safeguards.

Recognising misinformation as an infrastructure problem shifts the policy debate away from speech policing towards structural accountability. The central question becomes not only what content exists, but how information flows are designed, governed, and audited. Despite claims of neutrality, large digital platforms exercise substantial editorial power through automated curation. That power shapes visibility, reach, and influence, yet it operates with limited transparency and minimal democratic oversight.

Institutional responses must therefore begin with visibility. Platforms that shape public discourse at scale should be subject to meaningful disclosure obligations. Independent audits of algorithmic systems, credible access to data for researchers, and regular reporting on amplification patterns are essential. Without such transparency, regulators and citizens are left responding to outcomes while remaining blind to causes.

The second requirement is incentive realignment. As long as engagement metrics dominate revenue models, misinformation will remain commercially attractive. Policy tools could include liability frameworks focused on systemic harms, competition measures that reduce excessive concentration of attention, and levy mechanisms that support public interest information infrastructure. The objective is not to regulate speech or adjudicate truth, but to correct market failures that reward distortion and outrage.

Third, regulatory capacity must be updated to reflect technological reality. Most existing legal frameworks were designed for print or broadcast media, where editorial responsibility was clearly identifiable. They are poorly equipped to address algorithmic amplification, cross-border information flows, and the speed of digital virality. Regulatory institutions need technical expertise, independence, and coordination across sectors, from health and elections to finance and public order. Any such effort must remain anchored in constitutional protections for free expression, while recognising that ungoverned infrastructure can undermine those very freedoms.

This approach does not weaken free speech. On the contrary, it seeks to preserve the conditions under which free expression remains meaningful. When misinformation overwhelms credible information, the right to speak competes with the ability to be heard and understood. A functional public sphere requires systems that do not consistently privilege falsehood over fact.

There is also a case for public investment. Just as states invest in roads, power grids, and public utilities, they may need to support digital public goods such as trusted information repositories, independent local journalism, and public service algorithms designed for accuracy rather than engagement. Delegating core civic functions entirely to private platforms has proved fragile.

Misinformation will not disappear. Technologies will evolve, and adversarial actors will adapt. But treating misinformation as an infrastructure problem allows societies to manage it as a systemic risk rather than an endless series of speech controversies.

The author comments on technology, media and society. Her work explores how digital platforms reshape creativity, community and commerce.