Disinformation in Practice: Threats, Actors, Mechanisms, and Constraints According to Practitioners

HKS Misinformation Review | Grégoire Darcy and Sacha Altay

A survey of 106 French practitioners across military, government, regulatory, civil-society and media organisations finds broad agreement on an upstream, supply-side diagnosis of disinformation. Platforms, algorithms and organised actors are judged more important drivers than public demand for false content. Nine in ten rate social media platform owners as a major threat.

That diagnosis does not produce effective action. Practitioners report weak coordination, scarce resources, unclear mandates and a rhetoric-action gap rated serious by 76 percent. Fear of censorship accusations ranks high, yet most encounter actual ethical dilemmas rarely or never. Scientific research is trusted by 71 percent, but only about a third keep up with it; most rely on the press and gray literature and read primarily in French. Nearly all expect foreign interference and false content to increase over the next three to five years. Only 13 percent believe institutions will be able to contain the threat. Compared with academic scientists, the practitioners rate electoral impact higher and institutional distrust lower.

Comment

The shared supply-side diagnosis concentrates responsibility on platforms and amplification structures. Practitioners therefore treat the problem as one of production and distribution rather than audience demand. That framing shapes the tools they reach for, yet the same survey shows the response system lacks the coordination and indicators needed to act on it.

A second-order consequence is the persistent gap between declared priority and operational capacity. When 76 percent identify a rhetoric-action shortfall and only 13 percent expect institutions to contain the threat, the diagnosis itself becomes self-limiting: attention stays fixed on upstream actors while the organisational conditions required for sustained response remain unmet.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If the supply-side diagnosis shared by the 106 practitioners continues to dominate, which constraint would weigh more heavily on future containment: the rhetoric-action gap rated serious by 76 percent or the limited direct engagement with research?

The pattern suggests the rhetoric-action gap is the more binding constraint. Even where research is trusted, the absence of coordination, resources and shared indicators prevents the diagnosis from translating into sustained operational capacity, leaving the 13 percent confidence figure the more realistic marker of institutional reach.

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