Why does being able to choose from many sources of information lead us away from the actual truth? The year of Covid19 and the contentious U.S. Presidential election featured an especially high incidence of disinformation strategies at the global level. The web and social networks amplified the effect by spreading news that was manipulated in order to strengthen its believability. Distorted, biased, emotional information appears increasingly more credible than straightforward facts. Automatic selection performed by algorithms, on the basis of our personal data and online choices, exacerbates polarization. So we are not participating in an “open market of ideas” in which competition generates knowledge and choice opportunities. In fact, we are immersed in a paradoxical and dangerous “truth market”, where “plausible facts” are bought and sold according to demand. This thought-provoking book deals with a burning issue and calls for new, badly needed rules: the very well-being of democracy is at stake.

Antonio Nicita teaches Economic Policy at the LUMSA University (Libera Università Maria Santissima Assunta) in Rome and is a former commissioner of the Italian Regulatory Authority for Communications.