Davos Elites Warn That Disinformation Is an Existential Threat to Their Influence

The World Economic Forum—an annual meeting of internal business leaders, political figures, and other elites—is well underway in Davos, Switzerland. One of the topics of discussion on Monday was “The Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation,” presented by former CNN host Brian Stelter.

Stelter and his panelists did elucidate several pressing dangers with respect to rampant disinformation on social media; quite inadvertently, they also highlighted the inherent drawbacks of adopting a permanent war-footing approach to stopping disinformation. Indeed, several of the panelists spread inaccurate information during the course of their remarks.

These panelists were Vera Jourová, a member of the European Union’s executive cabinet, the European Commission; Jeanne Bourgault, who helms a nonprofit group that supports independent media; Rep. Seth Moulton (D–Mass.); and A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times and nepo baby.

Stelter kicked off the discussion by framing “disinformation” as the central conundrum of our times—all other problems being downstream of this issue. Sulzberger wholeheartedly embraced this view.

“I think it maps, basically, to every other major challenge that we are grappling with as a society, and particularly the most existential among them,” he said, lumping in disinformation—false information, intended to mislead people—with “conspiracy, propaganda, and clickbait.” Disinformation is why society seems so fractured, why trust in elite institutions is declining, and why democracy itself appears to be retreating, they implied.

In other words, it’s all Facebook’s fault.

Social media has become a popular scapegoat and common enemy of elite media figures and Democratic politicians (as well as Republican politicians, albeit for opposite reasons), who seized on Russian malfeasance as their preferred explanation for how Donald Trump was able to win the presidency in 2016. This explanation—bad actors, probably Russian, are confusing voters on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other online platforms—is now frequently deployed to explain all sorts of troubling developments, even though studies keep disproving it.

Indeed, Moulton at first used his speaking time to equivocate on whether the governm