We’re not addressing misinformation effectively, not because we aren’t fast or forceful enough in correcting it, but because we’re often missing the point.
Misinformation isn’t always a symptom of ignorance or bad faith. More often, it’s a signal of confusion, fear, or unmet expectations. When we rush to counter or debunk narratives without listening, we risk transforming the original confusion into feelings of exclusion and mistrust that can further fuel misinformation.
The misinformation problem isn’t what we think
Humanitarian and development organizations have invested heavily in combating misinformation, especially during public health emergencies and humanitarian crises. But are we asking why certain falsehoods gain traction in the first place?
Efforts to “correct” misinformation without understanding its origins are often short-term or ineffective. Many rumors and misinformation narratives emerge from genuine unanswered questions and concerns: whether the government truly cares about its citizens, if the media is being fair, whether society is becoming less moral, or if certain groups are being left behind. These questions and concerns are not misinformation that can be resolved with a fact-check because they reflect deeper feelings of mistrust or disconnection. These narratives often arise because people don’t feel heard. And when people aren’t heard, they stop listening in return.
Trust and accountability: two sides of the same coin
It’s hard to encourage someone to change behavior if they don’t trust the messenger.
Trust isn’t something that can be demanded; it must be earned. And it’s earned through consistent, respectful, transparent, accountable engagement. It means using communication to build relationships, acknowledge past failings, and open up decision-making processes.
For example, motivational interviewing is one of the few techniques that has successfully addressed vaccine hesitancy over the past few years.
Accountability is what sustains trust. Listening without meaningful follow-up reinforces the perception that institutions are distant and unresponsive. Gathering community feedback (including rumors and misinformation) is not enough unless those insights shape decisions, program design, and resource allocation that will in fact respond to people’s deep concerns.
But who decides what gets heard, and what gets acted on? Despite large-scale investments in community engagement, many INGOs and UN agencies still lack mechanisms to integrate people’s concerns into real, long-lasting social impact.
INGOs and UN Agencies: are we really listening?
Despite their growing concern with misinformation, many INGOs and global agencies continue to misdiagnose the problem.
Take, for example, the 2024 UN Global Risk Report. It rightly identifies misinformation as a serious threat, but its framing focuses heavily on reputational risk to institutions. As a result, communications protocols, content control, narrative corrections, and fact-checking are created as ways to “defend” institutional credibility instead of addressing people’s concerns. They are simply listening to react, not to understand.
People don’t spread misinformation because they want to harm institutions. They spread it because their concerns aren’t being acknowledged and addressed. Whether it’s distrust in vaccine rollouts or skepticism about international aid, misinformation often emerges from real, unmet needs and fears.
When institutions and organizations respond to misinformation with only image protection in mind, this sends the message that what we care about the most is how we’re perceived, instead of how people are actually doing. This reinforces alienation, not trust.
What’s needed is not more reputation management, it is:
- A shift from audience segmentation to community participation
- Power-sharing in how decisions get made, not just transparency in how they’re explained
- A recognition that misinformation is often a symptom of legitimacy failure, not a standalone threat
Misinformation as feedback: Listening as strategy
Rather than treating misinformation as a problem to fix, we should see it as a form of feedback.
Not all misinformation is equally harmful, and not all requires correction. Often, the more strategic response is to understand the underlying concern: Is it fear? Frustration? Lack of access? Listening deeply to these signals can reveal gaps in service delivery, engagement, or trust.
This reframing takes us away from top-down, expert-driven communication and toward relational, responsive programming. It starts with humility: being open to what people are telling us, even when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient.
This mirrors what Wardle and Scales argue in Nature Human Behaviour (2025): that current “social listening” is often reactive and extractive, focused on managing content rather than relationships. They call for a community-centered approach, one that integrates listening, engagement, and local participation as part of a systemic shift in how institutions respond to information harms.
The Missed Opportunity for INGOs and UN Agencies
We are at an inflection point.
Declining donor trust, shrinking civic space, and increasing politicization of aid and public health all signal a deep legitimacy challenge. But they also represent an opportunity: to rethink how we listen, how we engage, how we decide, and who we are accountable to.
New technologies allow for faster and more nuanced feedback gathering. But tech can’t (and shouldn’t) make decisions. people can. And if the decisions don’t reflect the concerns people raise, then the trust deficit only grows.
To move forward, INGOs and UN agencies must:
- Embed listening as a strategic priority, not a reactive tactic
- Create feedback loops so that people’s concerns directly inform policy, programming, and priorities
- Rethink governance models to make decision-making more inclusive and distributed
- Recognize that trust is built not by correcting people, but by including them in the design and implementation of programmes, and in deliberation of policies and tools
A Call to Action
We need to reframe how we think about misinformation, from a threat to be neutralized to a message to be understood. This model shows how to think about misinformation, with the central points that:
- It is more effective to address people’s concerns and questions than debunking rumors and misinformation.
- Building trust through actions is crucial for a healthier environment between institutions and citizens.
Because when people feel truly heard, they are far more open to hearing us in return.