How Elite Panic Over Misinformation Drove 2024’s Global Crackdown on Speech

In 2024, governments across the globe intensified their efforts to regulate misinformation and disinformation, driven by waves of elite panic over perceived threats to democratic processes. This surge in regulation coincided with a pivotal year in global politics, as approximately 2 billion voters—nearly half the world’s adult population—headed to the polls in nations including the United States, the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Taiwan, Mexico, and India.

Despite the record turnout, the prevailing sentiment among politicians, commentators, and media institutions was one of fear rather than celebration. A New York Times article published in January 2024 warned that “false narratives and conspiracy theories have evolved into an increasingly global menace,” further noting that “artificial intelligence has supercharged disinformation efforts and distorted perceptions of reality.”

Experts cautioned that the convergence of online influence campaigns and artificial intelligence had created a “perfect storm of disinformation” capable of undermining free and fair elections. The EU-funded European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) described disinformation campaigns as a “pervasive phenomenon,” with more voters exposed to such content than ever before. An anonymous senior EU official went further, comparing the threat to a “tsunami” of disinformation:

“It's as if we have been infected by this foreign interference. It's a silent killer.”

Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency, issued an even starker warning. She described AI-generated deepfakes of politicians as an “atomic bomb … to change the course of voter preferences.”

In response, the European Commission took aggressive action. It dispatched menacing letters to social media platforms and mobilized crisis units, anticipating weeks of post-election efforts to undermine the legitimacy of election results. At the Copenhagen Democracy Summit in May 2024, just one month before the European Parliamentary elections, Ursula von der Leyen, then-president of the European Commission and a candidate for reelection, made a sweeping pledge. She promised to prioritize a new “European democracy shield” designed to combat foreign interference.

This shield would focus on detecting and swiftly removing or blocking “malign information or propaganda.” The initiative would build upon—and likely expand—the obligations already established under the Digital Services Act. In essence, the shield would normalize emergency measures the European Union had previously adopted, such as banning and blocking Russian state-sponsored media following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Days after the invasion, the European Union suspended the broadcasting activities of Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, alleging that Russia was engaged in a “systematic, international campaign of media manipulation and distortion of facts” that threatened the democratic order in EU member states. On March 4, 2022, the European Commission issued a clarification stating that social media companies “must prevent users from broadcasting … any content of RT and Sputnik.” The directive was broad enough to encompass user-generated posts sharing such content.