The situation in Libya currently stands at a perilous crossroads, where the promise of national unity is constantly undermined by the dangerous weaponization of information. Hanna Tetteh, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative, recently delivered an urgent appeal to the Security Council, highlighting how coordinated disinformation campaigns are poisoning the social fabric of the country. By spreading baseless, malicious rumors—most notably the false claim that the UN intends to permanently resettle migrants within Libyan borders—bad actors have successfully incited violence. This hostility has escalated beyond mere rhetoric, manifesting in physical attacks and vandalism against UN and humanitarian facilities in Tripoli. Tetteh’s…

It is easy to look at the daily churn of news—marked by stories of human trafficking, civil unrest, polarized media echo chambers, and the frantic spread of viral misinformation—and conclude that we are living through a unique descent into chaos. We often characterize our modern era as unprecedented, assuming that the technological reach of social media and the 24-hour news cycle have pushed society into uncharted, darker territory. However, historian and Utah Valley University professor Greg Jackson offers a vital, grounding perspective: these tribulations are not modern inventions. They are, in fact, recurring patterns of human behavior that have tested…