The web promised us to democratize access to information regardless of modality or form, commonly referred to as the famous information superhighway. Since 1993, the World Wide Web has changed from an esoteric research project to an essential part of our daily life. The most fundamental aspect of the web is the basic access to a vast amount of information and new knowledge. Web usage continues to grow at a staggering pace—in fact, in the beginning the web as a new medium was solely accessible through computers. But, since 2007 this usage trend was disrupted by the mobile phone—especially with the introduction of the iPhone. Mobile phones changed the internet and web forever. In recent years, more than a decade now, the web that originally began as a promising idea—a democratic independent cyberspace that does not recognize borders or governments. Nowadays that original idea seems a distant past, which has now become boycotted, and the recent proliferation of disinformation and misinformation worldwide has made this cyberspace challenging to navigate and not credible nor reliable. The global problem of disinformation and misinformation has gained a lot of attention and momentum. The situation has therefore urged governments worldwide, especially in the West, to respond with various initiatives. From the EU-U.S. strategy under the transatlantic partnership to tackle global problems, within it also dis-and misinformation. These joint initiatives consist of regulatory proposals and funding of projects. However, despite all the efforts, the many funded potential solutions and other propositions by the technology industry and research community, the problem continues to advance and cause enormous damage. 

The web and the internet are in the hands of a few powerful tech companies. The present arbitrators and intermediaries operating actively throughout the web have no interest in tackling this issue, but rather aim at fulfilling their own long-term agendas. Silicon Valley will continue to focus on revenue and other paths for advertisement, this global information situation is not an issue for the Valley. There are many aspects and factors that make this situation complex, there are no laws or standards for what content can be put out online—these policies are only regulated and enforced by the platforms themselves (through: ToS, ToU). By the same token, various initiatives, such as laws proposed, and technological proposals and the overwhelming discussion about disinformation and misinformation in Western countries and globally, should be viewed skeptically and of concern. Because disinformation and misinformation, propaganda are an old problem in new light. The sole difference between now and then is the way humans access information and mobile phones have made it possible to reach more people faster. There are many more modalities available now. Disinformation and misinformation are nothing more than a different form of information and should be treated as such. The call for implementations and proposals to prevent disinformation and misinformation from reaching users is directly breaking the freedom of information, breaking a fundamental universal human right and should be of concern. This issue cannot be resolved by censorship.

Disinformation and misinformation are older than the internet and the web, it can therefore safely be argued that this is a deeply rooted problem in our societies worldwide. Regulatory proposals from the EU will not have an effect on this complex and paradoxical problem. The complexity of the problem demands a novel and solid solution. Setting the future course of reliable and credible web and understanding the risks and challenges requires sustained collaboration at a global level. Therefore, in this thesis four issues are concisely summarized that contribute to the overall complicated challenges. In this thesis, the issue is addressed from a computer science and technology aspect, with the focus on the human-computer interaction, human information processing, human information behaviour and human limitations. Any solution must take into consideration a lot of complex factors, one of them being human nature. The human is always the weak link. Technology is only capable of providing a partial solution to this complex and paradoxical problem. Therefore, it takes human expertise, collaboration, and ethnic groups to address and manage this multimodal problem through a multidisciplinary approach.