Polis Analysis is concerned over a potential dilution of the Online Safety Act (OSA) by the UK Government. While we acknowledge the complexities of navigating diplomatic and economic considerations – particularly in balancing relations with key allies such as the US — we strongly believe that any move to weaken the OSA would be a serious setback in the fi ght against online harms.

On Monday the 29th of July 2024, the northern English city of Southport was left reeling by a knife attack on a children’s dance class that left three young girls dead. The tragedy quickly reached viral prominence online, and narratives emerged that the attack was terror related, that the culprit was Muslim, that they had entered the UK illegally on a small boat. These narratives were entirely speculative but filled a void in public discourse left by the British police’s standard procedure of withholding information about minors in custody from the public. The initial false claims were quickly laundered through wider social media discourse, via a disparate collection of influencers, commentators and sources claiming to be authoritative news outlets. Now, with the veneer of credibility, these falsehoods generated a surge in vitriolic discourse around immigration and multiculturalism in Britain, spurred on by inflammatory comments from figures on the mainstream, radical and extreme political right.

This Wednesday our CEO Thomas Barton will have the opportunity to represent Polis Analysis at the Aspen Cyber Summit in Washington, D.C.. During this time, he will be looking to build upon productive conversations concerning means to tackle the dangers posed by disinformation.

Polis Analysis welcomes the UK Government’s recent announcement that critical skills to combat disinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories will be included within England’s primary and secondary school curriculum review as confirmed by the Education Secretary.

Over the past three weeks UK political parties have published their respective manifestos ahead of the country’s general election on 4 July. After reading nearly 400 pages of policy pledges from the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, the SNP, and Plaid Cymru, Polis Analysis is disappointed and concerned by the lack of appropriate recognition of the dangers that misinformation and disinformation pose to the UK’s electoral processes.

A Rise in Fake News: Polis Analysis holds a mission to provide high quality and impartial analysis of global politics which is dependent on the ability to separate fact from fiction. In a world of ever-advancing capabilities, historically low trust in the press, and widespread access to near-infinite digital resources, this is a task that has become increasingly difficult to complete.

On Monday, Thomas Barton will be representing Polis Analysis at NATO’s Youth Summit in Miami just one month after NATO celebrated its 75th anniversary. The Alliance was forged in the aftermath of the Second World War to deter future aggressors from weakening Europe’s security.

The EC alleges that Meta has failed to address “disinformation campaigns and coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, failed to provide “an effective third-party real-time civic discourse” and an “easy to access and user-friendly” mechanism to flag illegal content, while illegally "demoting political content in the recommender systems” of Facebook and Instagram.

With a backdrop of the UK Online Safety Bill which misses out on any significant provisions to explicitly target misinformation (unintentionally spreading news that is false) and disinformation (a deliberate attempt to proliferate false news for an agenda), and ahead of Rishi Sunak’s global AI governance summit next week, the fight against disinformation faces its next monumental challenge: generative AI.

Polis Analysis welcomes the passage of the Online Safety Bill through its final stages in Parliament. While the Bill does not go far enough in tackling online disinformation, the Bill at least represents a first legislative attempt by the Government to address the important issue of disinformation.

In Vuelio’s webinar ‘Why we need to take online misinformation and disinformation seriously’, Thomas Barton, our Founder and CEO, shared the problems we face as a society with fake news, predictions for how it could impact politics, business and health, and the vital role of PR practitioners in the fight for truth. You can read a summary of the webinar below.

‘I don’t think we’re in a post-truth world yet, but we need to act now to avoid that worst-case scenario,’ believes Polis Analysis CEO and Founder Thomas Barton.

Polis Analysis has been researching the issue of online misinformation and we have produced our own research findings into the attitudes of young people towards fake news. Below are the key Polis research findings based on surveys conducted with hundreds of young people in their twenties across North America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

The Polis Analysis team is happy to see that –  as part of the investments into safeguarding the UK from outside forces –  disinformation is seriously being seen as a legitimate threat to the security and stability of our society.

It is the long-term threats that we need to be most concerned about – every day, we are feeling the corrosive impacts of misinformation, but its effect on society and democracy will only fully show in the longer term.

Dear Member of Parliament, the Online Safety Bill presents a unique opportunity to tackle harmful content online and protect vulnerable people including children.

The widely debated Online Safety Bill might soon be enacted into UK law. However, it unfortunately overlooks one very covert, but crucial form of harmful online content: fake news.

Whilst all referring to different aspects of a broader issue, it is important to recognise the terms fake news, misinformation and disinformation are often used interchangeably.

Last week Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced to make maths lessons compulsory for all students up to 18. However, we believe that the Government is missing a huge opportunity for additional reform to the education curriculum.

We submitted evidence to the pre-legislative parliamentary scrutiny committee calling for a holistic approach to tackling online misinformation.