AI Reforms from the Grassroots: Disinformation, Fact-Checking, and Journalism

By any measure, the landscape of disinformation has grown more sophisticated, more coordinated, and far more consequential. Yet every time I speak publicly, whether about AI, regulation, journalism, or public education, I can almost predict which sectors will bristle the most. Educators, creatives, and journalists often respond with the fiercest defensiveness. And while that defensiveness is deeply human, it is also one of the least discussed barriers to genuine policy reform.

Disinformation is not new. Journalists, in particular, have been exposing paid networks, troll farms, and influence operations for more than a decade. Their work is foundational: the early reporting of independent newsrooms, investigative centers, and fact-checking organizations gave civil society, and eventually policymakers, the vocabulary, evidence, and urgency needed to even begin grappling with this problem. Outfits like Press One and PCIJ have mapped the infrastructure of coordinated deceit long before most institutions acknowledged its scale.

But acknowledging journalistic leadership and pointing out structural limits are not mutually exclusive. Yet many journalists react as though they are.

In my recent FB post about amplification vs. speech, a Bhex Arcega thought to send this scathing rebuttal:

Unpacking the tone of the reaction, it affirms a pattern I frequently encounter. Whenever I observe publicly that fact-checking alone cannot solve the disinformation crisis, some interpret it as an attack on their profession. But insisting on false binaries, either journalism works, or it is useless; either fact-checking saves us, or it is irrelevant, prevents us from seeing the system as it is. Journalism is indispensable. And insufficient. Both statements can be true. Both are true.

The louder the defensiveness, the harder it becomes to talk about the missing pieces: platform governance, funding transparency, algorithmic accountability, community resilience, and regulatory teeth. We cannot build effective policy reforms while navigating emotional minefields laid by people who are, understandably, exhausted and protective of their craft. But that emotional reality should not determine the limits of the conversation.

There is a deeper issue behind this: the assumption that reforms must originate in the halls of Congress. In reality, meaningful change often begins with the people most affected by the problem. When you work in both spaces, legislative advocacy on one hand and grassroots engagement on the other, you quickly learn how hard it is to shift modes.

I spend part of my time discussing AI governance with policymakers who need frameworks, definitions, regulatory scope, and enforcement mechanisms. Minutes later, I may find myself talking to farmers, teachers, or community organizers who do not care about the architecture of a model, they care about the harms they experience daily. Real-world misinformation is not an abstraction for them. It shapes their voting decisions, their livelihoods, their sense of security. Their children are targeted. Their families are manipulated. The distance between a Senate committee hearing and a barangay hall community dialogue is not measured in kilometers but in emotional bandwidth. Switching between those worlds is disorienting, humbling, and necessary.

Grassroots work is messy. It refuses to fit into tidy legislative language. But it is precisely where AI governance intersects with lived reality, and where defensiveness becomes most counterproductive. When journalists or educators treat any critique of fact-checking as a personal affront, they inadvertently perpetuate a status quo in which technocrats and lawmakers become the sole architects of reform. And that is a disaster waiting to happen. Because disinformation is not a purely technological problem, nor a purely legal one, it is a social phenomenon that mutates within communities long before legislators can catch up to it.

This is why I have argued, repeatedly, that fact-checking matters but is not enough. Fact-checking corrects individual claims; policy reform targets the amplification systems that make lies profitable. Fact-checking addresses content; policy addresses incentives. Fact-checking answers the “what”; policy tackles the “why.”

Those who insist that fact-checking is the only or primary weapon misunderstand the scale of the battlefield. Meanwhile, those who dismiss fact-checking entirely fall into the same trap of binary thinking. We cannot combat systemic, monetized disinformation with a single tactical approach. We need a layered strategy:

•          Journalistic investigation to expose networks.
•          AI-powered analysis to map the flow of money, influence, and amplification.
•          Legislative and regulatory reforms to penalize coordinated manipulation.
•          Community engagement to build resilience where disinformation does the most damage.

This is not an either-or equation. It is a whole-of-society fight.

AI is reshaping the terrain even further. Disinformation is no longer just organized; it is scalable. It is no longer just funded; it is automated. If fact-checkers once had difficulty keeping up with human trolls, imagine the impossibility of countering algorithmically generated propaganda without systemic solutions. The only viable path forward is policy reform grounded in community experience and informed by technological insight.

But "journalists know that" as Arcega notes. Again, the (over) self-reflectiveness eventually becomes an impediment here. The truth: journalists are not the only party to this conversation. Policy makers, law enforcement, the public at large, need to weigh in.

The irony is that the groups most threatened by disinformation, journalists, educators, artists, are also the groups who could be the most powerful allies in shaping these reforms. But that requires setting aside defensiveness long enough to recognize that critiques of structure are not attacks on individuals.

In the fight against disinformation, everyone has a role. But no one is the hero. And the sooner we abandon the comfort of binary thinking, the sooner we can build a strategy that matches the complexity of the threat.

 

About Me:

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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