Says the conference organiser, Professor Alan Jagolinzer of Cambridge Judge Business School:
“I sensed that there was consensus that any legislative action that assesses or regulates online tech policies must be coordinated across nations. The technology companies’ ability to bypass legislation is greater if they see enforcement as a localised issue where they have to only appease regulators from one country like Australia or Brazil.”
Another issue that was discussed at several Summit sessions is how disinformation often feeds from legitimate grievances about lack of economic and social mobility.
The summit hosted 3 sessions to discuss how researchers and policymakers face online, legal, professional, and sometimes physical threat harassment when they try to understand or minigate information-related harms.
The inaugural Cambridge Disinformation Summit was held in 2023 to build awareness of the issue, while this year’s second Summit on 23-25 April focused on what researchers have learned that might reduce harms from disinformation.
“The papers selected for the Summit suggest that certain interventions offer some promise,” says Professor Jagolinzer, who is Co-Director of the Centre for Financial Reporting and Accountability (CFRA) at Cambridge Judge Business School. "However, we plan to further assess how well the results might hold up to other assumptions or settings, whether the potential impact is scalable, why some interventions might not show results, and whether any interventions infringe on rights such as free speech.”
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