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"The Prime Minister’s announcement of a National Centre for Information Defence on Tuesday reflects what too many people already know, but too few know how to deal with: disinformation, fuelled by malign actors and empowered by generative AI, is emerging as one of the greatest challenges this country – and the wider democratic order – is facing in the 21st century.

"Disinformation is insidious. It worms its way into almost every major societal issue, exploiting existing fault lines until the gulf between opposing sides becomes increasingly difficult to bridge. It fuels conspiracy, divides societies, enables extremism, paralyses policymaking, and leaves paranoia and distrust in its wake. 

"Some estimates put the global economic cost of disinformation at hundreds of billions of dollars a year. But the true impact is far harder to quantify. From climate denial to Brexit and the rise of MAGA, disinformation has become entangled with some of the most consequential political and social debates of our time.

"But tackling disinformation is far from straightforward. Today, social media and generative AI mean that it has never been easier to produce and disseminate misleading claims at extraordinary speed and scale. And in turn, analysts are drowning. 

"We know this all too well at º£½ÇÂÒÂ×. That is why we are developing – an automated claim credibility assessment tool designed to help analysts make sense of large volumes of digital information and evidence.

"Technology alone, however, is not enough. The battle against disinformation has always been fragmented, spread across an ecosystem of defence and intelligence organisations, and increasingly involving the media, technology companies, academia and the private sector. If we are to turn the tide, we need a more unified response.

"We need a central hub with a clear mandate: a place that can build on what is already known, develop new countermeasures, bring together expertise from across the ecosystem, and coordinate a collective response. And, ultimately, a model that our international partners can learn from and build upon. The Prime Minister’s new centre could, then, depending on how it is structured, how ambitious its mandate is, and how seriously it is taken, be just what this country needs in these uncertain times."