Reality bites: Moving on from misinformation

Carly Lubicz-Zaorski, QUT Digital Media Research Centre

A question for you: what is seven times two? Nope, it’s not 14: seven times two is a bicycle divided by the square root of a banana.

While I’ll point you here for the Dr Karl reference and the context, does it feel like you’re increasingly having conversations with family and friends, or seeing similar exchanges online, that no longer seem grounded in a shared reality? Not legitimate differences of opinion or policy preferences – these debates are of course part of healthy democracy – but disagreements over things that are verifiable: the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, the mechanics of how our electoral system works, established medical science and treatments. Exchanges like these have become more combative, more personal, and more confidently anchored to sources that sound authoritative, but don’t stand up to appropriate scrutiny.

Concerns about the integrity of our information ecosystems are a focus for researchers and policymakers. Globally, misinformation and disinformation have ranked number one or two as the most severe short-term risks in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report over the past three years, stoking instability and undermining trust in governance. Last year the International Panel on the Information Environment found the response to the climate crisis is being delayed and obstructed by misleading information about climate change and the available solutions, with policymakers as key targets. Climate and energy information integrity is now a key focus for the United Nations, with a Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change and associated declaration to support an elevated and coordinated effort to addressing the problem.

Domestically, last month the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group warned that climate-related disinformation now constitutes a national security threat, with implications for productivity, disaster readiness, and institutional legitimacy. Around the same time, the National Science and Technology Council released a series of reports outlining how to build resilience to misinformation in Australia, noting its risk to our social cohesion, democratic resilience and decision making. And just days before that, the Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy handed down its final report, The Integrity Gap: Restoring Trust in the Climate and Energy Debate.

Understood to be the first parliamentary inquiry globally to examine information integrity specifically in the climate and energy space, QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) and ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) researchers made an impactful contribution to this inquiry, both through our written submissions, and our appearances at the Senate Inquiry in Canberra. The DMRC drew upon research from across career stages and disciplines, covering climate disinformation during the 2019/20 Australian bushfires #ArsonEmergency campaign; the role of Australian political actors in spreading disinformation more generally; media and information literacy, including the need for broad-based and audience-focussed approaches; climate denial and conspiracy communication; Australian-based climate obstruction; and timely work on astroturfing during the 2025 federal election, which showed a prevalence of energy-related misleading adverts.

The resulting report was released last month and, while this issue can be oversimplified and result in piecemeal solutions with limited impact, the report’s recommendations are wide-reaching and recognise that the problem is not just limited to where we consume our information. There’s also a focus on empowering people within our information environments as opposed to censorship. However, the report’s additional comments identified areas where action could be stronger, for example, pursuing the Truth in Political Advertising laws that were well supported by a range of participants, and implementing a more proactive, responsive, and consistent national approach to tackling information integrity issues.

Several of the report’s central recommendations align directly with areas the DMRC and ADM+S are championing and already contributing to at the national level, including:

• The Australian Government increase funding for social sciences research relating to threats to climate and energy information integrity including potential solutions.
• The Australian Government explore funding models for independent monitoring support (for example, via the Australian Internet Observatory*) to track hidden digital influence ecosystems and provide independent transparency and accountability of platforms, and
• the Australian Government… broaden the Australian Curriculum 'digital literacy' general capability to strengthen media literacy, and that the upcoming National Media Literacy Strategy incorporate the information integrity framework with examples from the climate and energy domain.

• Help family and friends to navigate online spaces with this explainer from the DMRC’s Digital Media Demystified Series.
• Find out more about the Senate Inquiry on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy in this interview with Caroline Gardam and Carly Lubicz-Zaorski on the DMRC’s podcast, Read Them Sideways.

• ADM+S submissionto the Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy.

• DMRC submission to the Senate Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy.

*The Australian Internet Observatory is a co-investment partnership between the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) through the HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons and a cohort of Australian universities, including QUT.