Why I Believe We Must Break the Stalemate on “Fake News”: Focus on the Paid Actors

At the recent committee hearing, I made a point I have been repeating for years: our national debate on “fake news” has been trapped in the same unproductive loop, and unless we change our focus, we will never break the stalemate. From my work at CirroLytix and Data Ethics PH, I have seen firsthand how our current approach misdiagnoses the problem. Too often, we treat disinformation as if it were simply the product of individuals posting wrong or reckless opinions online. But the most dangerous disinformation today is not casual; it is organized.

Over the past few years, I have observed a sharp rise in what I call organized disinformation, campaigns engineered by PR firms, troll farms, influence contractors, and even state-sponsored groups. These are paid actors exploiting social media, AI, and human psychology to manipulate public perception. Ordinary citizens, meanwhile, become unwitting amplifiers. When we focus only on individual posts, we overlook the industrial machinery behind them.

This is why I believe we must shift our attention. We already have libel and slander laws to address individual falsehoods. What we lack are mechanisms that expose and deter coordinated conspiracies designed to mass-produce misinformation. As long as our debates fixate on the truth or falsity of isolated posts, we will continue chasing symptoms rather than confronting the systems manufacturing them.

Why the Focus Must Change

One of the biggest obstacles we face is the persistent belief that regulating disinformation means regulating speech. This is simply not true. What requires oversight is not the content of every post but the conduct of organized networks that manipulate attention at scale.

Every time policymakers attempt to define “fake news,” the term becomes more politicized and less useful. It is a vague label that distracts us from the real threat. Meanwhile, the actors behind organized disinformation evolve faster than any content moderation scheme can keep up with. They adapt tactics, scale operations, and leverage new technologies to simulate public movements.

This is why I keep urging a shift from policing content to governing structures. We must look at the behavior of networks: how narratives are seeded, amplified, and laundered through authentic users. My concern is not the individual who gets something wrong online; it is the paid machinery that ensures falsehoods spread with industrial efficiency.

Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom of Reach

A key misunderstanding fuels our inaction: the idea that limiting artificially amplified disinformation is equivalent to limiting free speech. I strongly disagree. What we must protect is the freedom of speech of individual citizens, not the freedom of reach of coordinated influence operations.

In a democracy, people have the right to express themselves, even imperfectly. But no one has a right to deploy bots or troll farms to dominate algorithms. No one has a democratic entitlement to buy virality or simulate public consensus. These amplification tactics distort public discourse and drown out authentic voices.

When we distinguish speech from reach, we can develop laws that protect democratic expression while preventing the hijacking of public debate. This distinction is critical to breaking the stalemate.

How We Break the Stalemate

From my perspective, the path forward requires several key shifts:

• First, redefine the problem. Fake news is not the stray inaccurate post; it is the industrial production of coordinated falsehoods.
• Second, build mechanisms that detect and deter organized campaigns. We must identify clusters of paid accounts, coordinated posting patterns, and algorithmic manipulation, not individual mistakes.
• Third, establish independent oversight. Rather than having government agencies declare what is true or false, we need an independent body focused on structural abuse, not political narratives.
• Fourth, require platforms to intervene on reach rather than speech. They cannot be arbiters of truth, but they must prevent their systems from being weaponized by coordinated actors.

The Real Threat and the Real Solution

The heart of my message is simple: the gravest danger we face comes not from citizens who are wrong, but from actors who are organized. Disinformation today is engineered, funded, and designed for impact. If we continue to focus only on content, we will lose the battle before it even begins.

But if we shift our attention to organized manipulation, the networks, the money, the tactics, we can finally break the years-long stalemate. We can protect both democratic discourse and genuine free expression.

In an age where reach is weaponized, defending speech requires changing the battlefield itself. I believe this shift is not just necessary, it is urgent.

Dominic “Doc” Ligot is one of the leading voices in AI in the Philippines. Doc has been extensively cited in local and global media outlets including The Economist, South China Morning Post, Washington Post, and Agence France Presse. His award-winning work has been recognized and published by prestigious organizations such as NASA, Data.org, Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF.

 If you need guidance or training in maximizing AI for your career or business, reach out to Doc via https://docligot.com. 

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