2024 reflections and 2025 forecasts
Online misinformation and disinformation
Readily available AI tools, social media and pay-to-play websites are making it easier than ever to create and circulate misinformation and disinformation. Plausible deepfakes or damaging articles containing fabricated quotes from fictitious journalists are an increasingly regular occurrence and this will continue.
Online safety & sextortion: a growing digital threat
Global worries over young people’s exposure to harmful content are escalating. In late 2024, Australia introduced a minimum age of 16 for social media, sparking debate.
In the UK, schools are likely to tighten restrictions on mobile and social media use, though wider legislation remains uncertain. Meanwhile, sextortion cases are surging, prompting a warning from the National Crime Agency. The Online Safety Act includes measures against threats to share intimate images, with further deepfake-related legislation on the horizon.
"The Online Safety Act has specific provisions to tackle threats to share intimate images, while more specific legislation relating to deepfakes is also on the horizon."
The number of people aged 16+ who say they have seen at least one deepfake online in the last six months
This increases among children aged 8-15
The 2024 Wealth Report, Chubb Insurance
"As we look ahead to 2025, reputation management must evolve to reflect a world in which AI not only makes it increasingly easy to generate false and increasingly convincing narratives about businesses and individuals, but social media is able to spread the damage far and wide."
Alan Morgan, Managing Partner at Kendal Advisory
Online reputation: a new corporate battleground
In a world veering ever further towards digital and non-traditional media, senior executives and businesspeople are more acutely aware of their online presence. Clients will continue to seek protection from adverse online content and search results, fearful of the risks of debanking and other negative impacts.
Personal conduct under the spotlight: is 'cancel culture' real?
High-profile investigations have increasingly exposed professional misconduct, with the former Criminal Bar Association chair as a recent example. More cases will follow. It remains to be seen how those accused - but not legally charged - attempt to rebuild their reputations, whether through litigation or a more measured, long-term approach.
Deepfake fraud increase in 2022
in North America
in the Asia-Pacific region
The Sumsuber. (2023). Sumsub Expert Roundtable: The Top KYC Trends Coming in 2024.
"Social media is becoming increasingly unregulated, as evidenced by Meta’s recent removal of fact-checkers and Twitter disbanding its Trust & Safety teams. A poorly thought-out post has long held the potential to spark a viral storm, but today these platforms not only amplify cancel culture but spread misinformation at scale. Without a rapid and transparent PR response, both individuals and companies risk irreparable reputational damage, as bots distort the truth and escalate crises beyond control."
Alan Morgan, Managing Partner at Kendal Advisory
Power, politics & platforms: the Musk-Trump era begins
The formal appointment of Elon Musk to a freshly inaugurated Trump cabinet will bring the relationship between politicians and social media and media owners once more into the spotlight. Whether the ‘exodus’ of X users to BlueSky continues will also be a key trend to watch in 2025. And completing the intermingling of politics and social media will be Musk’s increasing appetite for intervention in electoral politics, as demonstrated by talk of a donation to Reform and his expressions of support for Germany’s AfD.
SLAPPs: the fight against legal gagging continues
Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) have fallen down the political agenda from 2022’s high watermark, when the invasion of Ukraine came shortly after and coincided with a number of libel cases brought by Russian claimants. While there is no immediate plan to legislate, the issue remains extremely topical and it may be that measures are unveiled next year. The provisions of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 relating to SLAPPs in cases relating to economic crime are yet to come into force, a further indication that there is uncertainty about how best to deal with this issue without impeding unfairly on access to justice.
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