Fake news online and beyond

Abstract

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025, disinformation and misinformation rank among the most acute challenges the world will face over the next 2 years. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 (Newman et al., 2025), based on representative data from 48 countries, confirms that this concern is widely shared. Fifty-eight percent of respondents report being worried about distinguishing truth from falsehoods online when consuming news; the corresponding figures are 73% in Africa and 54% in Europe. Social media platforms are regarded as the most dangerous sources of false news—Facebook (49%), TikTok (48%), X (34%), Instagram (32%), YouTube (30%), and WhatsApp (21%) (p. 23). Prior work shows that lies spread faster than truth, and fake news online diffuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth (Vosoughi et al., 2018). This review essay discusses two books that treat the subject with considerable depth.