Commercial Innovation Opportunities for Civic Tech to Reduce Misinformation: "Thinking outside the bunk"

Approaching the opportunity space ‘outside the bunk’

There are very good reasons to pursue and continue developing technologies within the framework of falsehood detection, at either the preventive (prebunking) or reactive (debunking) level. In this concept note, I argue that there are also good and relatively unexplored reasons to think beyond this standpoint. However, the purpose of this note is not to then propose solutions or to map what lies outside it. Rather, it seeks to provoke ideas and thinking that find innovative solutions and fresh perspectives to the debate. What new opportunities, aspects of the problem and challenges can be described and developed once we start ‘thinking outside the bunk’?

To explore this question, I conducted in-depth interviews with twelve experts and practitioners. Practitioners’ interviews emphasised both their domain expertise as well as their lived experiences working to mitigate misinformation on a daily basis. These interviews were carried out between March and May 2026. They all followed a similar structure: first presenting the general concept of ‘thinking outside the bunk,’ followed by questions about the experiences and challenges faced by those working in disinformation.

The interviews included the following participants:

1. A specialist working in the health information space, based in Scotland.

2. A specialist working in the food information space, based in Scotland.

3. A specialist working in governmental communications, based in Scotland.

4. A specialist working in public innovation, based in Scotland.

5. A specialist in misinformation technology and governance, based in the USA.

6. A specialist in misinformation governance, based in the EU.

7. A specialist in civic technology, based in Scotland.

8. An academic in human-computer interaction for information processing, based in Scotland.

9. A specialist in community engagement with information and digital technology, based in Scotland.

10. A specialist in community engagement with information and digital technology, based in Scotland.

11. An academic in misinformation technology, based in Scotland.

12. A specialist in civic technology, based in Scotland.

To start outlining this broader landscape, Figure 3 presents an alternative view of the misinformation cycle. It shifts focus from individual-centric misinformation interventions to a systemic perspective, where organisations (including public institutions) aim to foster information integrity, and diverse information communities engage in two-way dialogue.

Beyond the frame of correction, the interviews point to misinformation as a distributed phenomenon embedded in relationships, institutions, and everyday practices of sense-making. Across these perspectives, the challenge becomes less about fixing information and more about organising the infrastructures, collaborations, and capabilities through which societies can collectively engage with contested knowledge.

Figure 3 presents the opportunity space for misinformation civic tech as a set of relationships between five main actors.

On the left-hand side are diverse information communities. These are the publics, groups, networks, and communities through which information is discussed, interpreted, challenged, and shared. The figure deliberately avoids treating “the public” as a single audience. Communities have different histories with institutions, different sources of trust, different digital practices, and different vulnerabilities to targeted or accidental misinformation. As one interviewee put it, “each community will be targeted with different misinformation”. This means that a general correction issued from the centre may miss the social setting and vulnerabilities in which a claim becomes persuasive and potentially harmful.

Communities already establish specific communication channels, both online and offline. Therefore, general methods of sharing information are unlikely to have a significant impact at the community level unless they can access these internal information networks.

In our experience with grassroots, on-the-ground communication […] some communities are fully reliant on a huge WhatsApp group that might be sharing information, and they take everything because, I don't know, a leader of that community is in there, so it's trusted, or it might be Facebook because, I don't know, Jeanette down the road posted it, so it must be true (Specialist in community engagement with information and digital technology).

Moreover, it is important to recognise that communities already organise their information flows in complex ways. Without understanding those dynamics, any technology may lack penetration and impact:

“Now we operate, consumers in particular operate more horizontally, turning to their peers, communities, and online forums rather than relying on traditional regulators, which makes it challenging for regulators to have a strong voice, especially when we don't have a lot of money” (Specialist working in the food information space)

Among other key groups, interviewees highlighted the need to recognise the specific needs of children, youth, immigrants, and the digitally excluded: “We should never really deliver blocks of classes for people we don't know […] whether it is with refugees or violence, homelessness, young people with care experience, older adults, whatever community we're working with” (Specialist in community engagement with information and digital technology).

At the centre-right of the figure are information integrity organisations. These are public, private, and third-sector organisations that work to deliver quality information and to find ways to reach relevant audiences, or that hold some formal responsibility for improving the quality, reliability, accessibility, or safety of public information. This is especially important for public bodies, particularly on complex sectoral issues such as food, climate, and health. More generally, public organisations and third-sector groups systematically assist communities in understanding policy updates, social benefits, rights, and various topics that involve navigating intricate systems, systemic vulnerabilities, and conflicting claims.

Information integrity organisations may monitor harmful narratives, assess risk, produce guidance, coordinate responses, or support public communication. However, the figure makes clear that these organisations cannot act effectively on their own. Their role is not simply to broadcast authoritative information, but to organise the wider system through which information can be assessed, translated, trusted, and used.

Below them are expert communities. These include researchers, scientists, clinicians, policy specialists, practitioners, and others with relevant domain knowledge. Their contribution is essential, but not self-sufficient. Expert knowledge often needs to be interpreted for practical use, translated across institutional settings, and communicated in ways that resonate with people's lives. This is why the arrow from expert communities to information integrity organisations is labelled “translation of expert knowledge”. The point is not only that experts provide evidence, but that organisations need the capacity to turn evidence into usable public communication.

In this regard, one of the emerging challenges identified is in communicating evidence without ‘shutting down conversations’ via bringing nuance, critical thinking and healthy civic debate in a context where misinformation can often resort to claims of certainty and mobilising people’s anger and frustration:

We talk a lot about the dangers of certainty. I think science in general has a problem with talking about uncertainty, because, you know, there's no absolute truth in medicine or in science. It's always subject to the expansion of knowledge and understanding, and to things changing. That's quite a subtle message, and it requires a wee bit of scientific literacy. And it can't compete with somebody saying that, you know, vaccinations kill babies (Specialist working in the health information space).

Above information integrity organisations are otherinformation-active organisations . These may include media organisations, public agencies, civil society bodies, regulators, local authorities, education providers, professional bodies, charities, and platform-adjacent organisations. The figure labels this relationship “coordination and coalition-building”. Misinformation responses often fail when each organisation acts separately, with different messages, tools, and assumptions about the risks of misinformed claims. The opportunity here is to build shared protocols, common language, and coordinated responses, particularly when narratives move across sectors or affect vulnerable groups. This also means that there is a need for a shared misinformation strategy across sectors and actors:

“We need to have a common understanding among key people across the system in Scotland. We need a function that will allow us to track, share, and implement the latest research and best practice internationally as well” (Specialist working in the health information space).

Between information integrity organisations and diverse information communities are trusted intermediaries. These are the people and organisations that already listen to communities and are listened to by them: frontline workers, health professionals, community leaders, charities, local groups, educators, peer networks, or informal online curators. The relationship between information integrity organisations and trusted intermediaries is described as “trust building and delegated communication”. This is one of the most important components of the figure. The core insight is that trusted communication is often not best delivered by the formal authority that produced the message:

As one interviewee noted, public bodies often need to work with specialists and trusted organisations so that it is not simply the government saying “believe us”. Another warned that trusted professionals should not be “tainted” by being turned into mouthpieces for government policy. In that sense, critical to the success of this mediated communication is building a good relationship with the trusted intermediaries over time:

We work with many of the third-sector and charity organisations that are active in this space, and share our messaging with them in the hope that they can pass the message on to the audience, because the audience is much more likely to listen to these charities, whom they trust and have faith in to help them, than to come to us seeking help (Specialist working in governmental communications).

The relationship between trusted intermediaries and diverse information communities is represented by a direct flow. This suggests that intermediaries are not merely channels for dissemination. They are interpreters, translators, listeners, and brokers of trust. They understand local context, know what language will land, and can identify when misinformation reflects deeper issues: fear, exclusion, service failure, past harm, or lack of accessible information.

It is important to note that trusted intermediaries can also be vectors of misinformation. This makes the need to identify and coordinate with them doubly relevant. There is a need to provide tools that help identify and coordinate positively with those local actors, especially considering the commercial interests that may be influencing their actions:

I worry that even the communities’ own information sharing can be counterproductive when some members are mostly looking after their own interests. Local leaders or entrepreneurs might believe zealously in their position or product, and if they’re persuasive they might, completely without malice, sway others who would have benefited from deeper consideration. There might always have been a problem of neighbouring communities getting trapped in opposing dogmas, but is this now being exacerbated by Web 2.0’s Social Media platforms? (Specialist in civic technology).

Finally, the figure includes a circular relationship between expert communication and community learning. One side is labelled “communicating expert knowledge”; the other is “learning from and building trust with communities”. This is the heart of the opportunity space. The challenge is not simply to move more accurate information into communities. It is to create a two-way process in which institutions learn what people are worried about, what information they need, who they trust, and why certain narratives become plausible. This reflects the interview insight that false narratives can be treated as “signals for the information that people want to have”, rather than only as content to be shut down.