In the wake of a national crisis, a software consultant and university professor found himself grappling with a question that has come to define our era: how can a democracy function when its citizens cannot even agree on a shared set of facts? David Levitt, a professor at Metropolitan State University, was driving home one afternoon in January 2021, having just picked up a book on campus, when the radio began broadcasting reports of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The news stopped him cold. He had always taken the peaceful transfer of power for granted, a bedrock assumption of…

In an age when a single social media post can circle the globe in seconds, misinformation often arrives dressed in the language of certainty. That was precisely the case in late September 2026, when a Facebook graphic began circulating in Sri Lanka with the alarming headline: “Breaking news: Sri Lanka has been removed from the United Nations.” The post, written in Sinhala and shared on September 25, featured a photograph of Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake set against a blue United Nations backdrop. The caption beneath the image stoked outrage and confusion, claiming that the president had “really messed…