Wednesday 10 June 2026 4:48 am  |  Updated:  Tuesday 09 June 2026 11:30 am

Is it even possible to regulate ‘misinformation’?

By: Paul Ormerod

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It’s easy to call for crackdowns on ‘misinformation’, but how do you actually regulate such an amorphous term, asks Paul Ormerod

Following the publicity given to the murder of Henry Nowak and the actions of the police, all sorts of stories and allegations are flying around social media. Predictably, politicians have not been slow in calling for regulation of what they regard as “misinformation”.

Undoubtedly, a lot of material floating in the ether is just plain wrong.  A study of social media posts about local news released earlier this week by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) – hardly a hotbed of pro-regulation thinking – provided plenty of examples.  

The assertion that Birmingham Council had stopped conducting meetings in English was widely shared. The SMF argued that 6.5 per cent of news-related posts in the Gorton and Denton by-election amounted to misinformation, including the alleged statement by the........

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