American author Mark Twain coined the succinct phrase ‘A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes'.
Disinformation is not new. Lies, malignant gossip, mistruths, half-truths and propaganda have been the staple of public discourse since the dawn of time.
Yet, how public authorities combat such disinformation today only seems to become a question when lies bring violence. When the falsehoods cause less volatility we shrug our shoulders and move on.
Council politicians also have a responsibility not to serve up disinformation. If they fail in their basic duty to act for the benefit of their area then Standards Committees and monitoring officers need to come down on them like a mountain of bricks.
It is the failure to tackle those less vitriolic lies that, in part, lead to where we are now. Those stamping on the head of a refugee are in the same cabal as the 5G mast conspiracists; climate change deniers; Covid vaccine hoaxers; some Low Traffic Neighbourhood cynics and 15-minute cities tin foil hatters – conspiracies that have gone half-heartedly challenged but lead people towards scepticism, disillusionment and disenfranchisement from mainstream society.
Helping information get out to people to tackle disinformation needs continued effort at all levels of the public sector. For local government this means constant work internally, externally, regionally, with partners and nationally.
The first is in the material that comes from councils to residents. All too often council information is buried in a quagmire of jargon that only a handful of people understand. When around one in seven adults cannot read above the standard expected of an 11-year-old, it is vital that material is kept simple.
To do this needs a well-resourced communications department. Web, social, internal, marketing, campaigns, media and events all need to sit under one departmental roof. That allows consistent clear messages and rapid rebuttal of identified disinformation.
Excellent internal communications to staff about the area is also imperative. In many places a council is one of the largest employers. Internal comms should not just be a HR conduit of tedious messages about leave and wellbeing. It should be about what is going on in the area and an ask, from the council, for staff to spread the word to friends and family.
Council politicians also have a responsibility not to serve up disinformation. If they fail in their basic duty to act for the benefit of their area then Standards Committees and monitoring officers need to come down on them like a mountain of bricks.
Yet, a council cannot combat disinformation by itself. There needs to be continual work between the public sector, charities, business and community leaders to ensure smooth information flows nip any groundswell of misinformation in the bud.
As the latest unrest shows, lies do not stop at a local government, let alone national, borders. Working with councils right across an area to identify potential flare ups is imperative and is where metro mayors should come into their own.
Then there is the medium through which much disinformation spreads. Social media through the likes of Telegram or Twitter/X is now a tawdry toxic soup of unchallenged lies and calls for violence that, potentially ‘crossed the line into terrorism'.
Since Elon Musk took over, the Wild West of social media is descending down a depressingly misinformed and increasingly dark rabbit hole that is leading directly to violence. With councils having a duty of care for residents, it, through the Local Government Association, must lobby for these channels to be banned under anti terror legislation by the Home Secretary in the same way other organisations that have been deemed a threat for preaching violence towards the UK have been.
For if we are to give truth a chance to get her shoes on before the lie ends up halfway round the world then we need to take a myriad of steps to slow and spoil the insidious world of disinformation.
Richard Stokoe is a communications consultant specialising in crisis communications and a town councillor
