As social media becomes a “more pervasive part of day to day life,” said Paul Barrett of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, the potential damage caused by disinformation becomes greater. People consuming information on social media are less discriminating, he said, creating more opportunity for them to be misled, which fosters a dangerous cynicism.

“It’s the kind of attitude that men and women on the street in Moscow have, like, ‘We can’t tell what’s true or not, whether what Putin says makes any sense, so we’re not even going to try,’” said Barrett, the author of a September report on disinformation in the 2020 election. “And you don’t want Americans to get to that stage because then we’re really subject to being exploited.”