SINGAPORE — From laws that require those who put up political advertisements to declare their sources of funding, to those compelling social networks to take down defamatory content and hate speech, countries worldwide have taken steps to tackle the global scourge of online falsehoods.

Social media companies operating in Germany face fines of up to S$79.5 million if they do not take down illegal, slanderous or defamatory comments and posts within 24 hours of such content being reported.

In the United States, tech companies like Google and Facebook are required to disclose the parties purchasing online political advertising and who their target audiences are.

Just this week, French President Emmanuel Macron and Swedish security chief Anders Thornberg spoke strongly against the spread of false information.

On Wednesday (Jan 3), Mr Macron announced draft legislation capping the amount of sponsored content and requiring websites to make public the identity of their sponsors.

On Friday (Jan 5), Mr Thornberg highlighted how combatting the threat of misinformation and fake news is now a priority for his agency. Sweden has seen espionage and cyber-intrusions into the country’s infrastructure from Russia and China, Mr Thornberg had said in an interview with the BBC.

Technology companies are also taking a more proactive stance in clamping down on fake accounts and false stories from their networks.

Facebook, which has been under fire for its role in facilitating alleged Russian interference the United States’ presidential elections in 2016, is now tapping artificial intelligence to spot and delete bots and bogus pages.

Its software reportedly disabled 30,000 fake accounts during the French presidential election last May.

Google has also modified its search ranking systems so that more authoritative pages come up in searches while “low-quality content” is demoted. In April last year, it also introduced a tool for users to report misleading content.

These changes come after months of pressure on Google over low-quality and offensive search results, including those that promote the idea that climate change is a hoax.

While such measures are welcome, they are not foolproof. Misinformation continued to go viral in the wake of recent events, such as the mass shooting in Las Vegas last October. Hours after the massacre, both Facebook and Google had carried posts that incorrectly identified the shooter but later blamed algorithm errors for these inaccuracies.