Concern about the proliferation of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda has reached the point where many governments are proposing new legislation.

past June, Germany's Parliament adopted a law that includes a provision for fines of up to 50 million euros ($59 million) on popular sites like Facebook and YouTube if they fail to remove "obviously illegal" content, such as hate speech and incitements to violence, within 24 hours.

One 2015 study found that bots generate around 50 percent of all web traffic, with as many as 50 million Twitter users and 137 million Facebook users exhibiting nonhuman behaviors.

It was not until mid-September that Facebook even agreed to disclose information about political campaign ads; it still refuses to offer data on other forms of disinformation.

Facebook is the chief culprit: With an average of 1.32 billion daily active users, its impact is massive, yet the company refuses to give outside researchers access to the information needed to understand the most fundamental questions at the intersection of the internet and politics.

...