The BBC has joined forces with some biggest players in journalism and technology, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, to tackle the issue of online disinformation.

The group plans to create an early warning system which would enable organisations to alert each other quickly when misinformation is discovered that may cause a threat to human life or influence people during elections. The BBC didn’t reveal how this system will look or work but promised to release more details in the future.

There is also the aim of working together to launch a media education campaign, to provide a common way of explaining how and where people can vote, and to share learning around high-profile elections.

Major social media firms have come under heavy fire over the last few years for their failures in preventing the spread of ‘fake news’ on their platforms – whether this disinformation is linked to key political moments, such as the 2016 US presidential election and Brexit, or things potentially harmful to health like the anti-vaccination movement.

A recent study in the UK found that 85 per cent of adults feel that social media companies have a responsibility to remove fake news, with 79 per cent believing the firms should be monitoring fake news on their platforms.