Think about a person in their late sixties, scrolling through social media after dinner. They see a post from a friend about a natural remedy for joint pain. It sounds reasonable, even hopeful. They scroll a little more and see a video of someone sharing a dramatic story about a popular medication. Later, they come across an ad that looks like a news article promoting a supplement. None of these posts are exactly lying, but they are also not giving the full picture. The person may not remember where each piece of information came from, only that they saw it,…

There is a kind of panic that comes with not knowing whom to trust in a crisis. Imagine a wildfire advancing toward your community, and you are staring at your phone, trying to decide whether the official evacuation order is real or a trap. Imagine a parent with an asthmatic child, reading a post that claims air quality warnings are just a government scheme, and hesitating before keeping their child indoors. This is the world that health experts are now asking us to confront. The World Health Organization’s member states, along with health and civil society organizations, are being called…